Cost-Effectiveness Analysis of a Transparent Antimicrobial Dressing for Managing Central Venous and Arterial Catheters in Intensive Care Units.

Objective: To model the cost-effectiveness impact of routine use of an antimicrobial chlorhexidine gluconate-containing securement dressing compared to non-antimicrobial transparent dressings for the protection of central vascular lines in intensive care unit patients.

Design: This study uses a novel health economic model to estimate the cost-effectiveness of using the chlorhexidine gluconate dressing versus transparent dressings in a French intensive care unit scenario. The 30-day time non-homogeneous markovian model comprises eight health states. The probabilities of events derive from a multicentre (12 French intensive care units) randomized controlled trial. 1,000 Monte Carlo simulations of 1,000 patients per dressing strategy are used for probabilistic sensitivity analysis and 95% confidence intervals calculations. The outcome is the number of catheter-related bloodstream infections avoided. Costs of intensive care unit stay are based on a recent French multicentre study and the cost-effectiveness criterion is the cost per catheter-related bloodstream infections avoided. The incremental net monetary benefit per patient is also estimated.

Patients: 1000 patients per group simulated based on the source randomized controlled trial involving 1,879 adults expected to require intravascular catheterization for 48 hours.

Intervention: Chlorhexidine Gluconate-containing securement dressing compared to non-antimicrobial transparent dressings.

Results: The chlorhexidine gluconate dressing prevents 11.8 infections /1,000 patients (95% confidence interval: [3.85; 19.64]) with a number needed to treat of 85 patients. The mean cost difference per patient of €141 is not statistically significant (95% confidence interval: [€-975; €1,258]). The incremental cost-effectiveness ratio is of €12,046 per catheter-related bloodstream infection prevented, and the incremental net monetary benefit per patient is of €344.88.

Conclusions: According to the base case scenario, the chlorhexidine gluconate dressing is more cost-effective than the reference dressing.

Trial Registration: This model is based on the data from the RCT registered with www.clinicaltrials.gov (NCT01189682).