Cost-effectiveness analysis of anticoagulation, percutaneous mechanical thrombectomy, and catheter-directed thrombolysis treatments for acute lower extremity deep venous thrombosis.

Background: There is a lack of health economics studies on the treatment of acute lower extremity deep venous thrombosis to measure the benefits to patients. The purpose of this study was to evaluate the cost-effectiveness of anticoagulation (AC), percutaneous mechanical thrombectomy (PMT), and catheter-directed thrombolysis (CDT).

Methods: The above 3 methods were selected according to the patient's treatment wishes. Related complications, clinical effective, occurrence of post-thrombotic syndrome (PTS) after 2 years, and total hospitalization costs of patients between the patients in these 3 treatment groups were analyzed. In the cost-effectiveness analysis, costs were expressed in monetary terms and the effect was expressed as the effective rate of clinical treatment. In addition, we used sensitivity analyses to validate the results.

Results: The effective rate of clinical treatment for the AC, CDT, and PMT groups were 44.23%, 86.84%, and 92.59%, respectively. No serious complications occurred in any of the treated patients. There was no significant difference in the incidence of PTS among the 3 groups during the follow-up period. After 12 months, compared with the AC group, there were statistically significant differences in moderate-severe reduction in PMT group and CDT group separately. At 24 months, the incidence of moderate-severe disease in PMT group was significantly lower than that in CDT group.

Conclusion: All 3 treatment methods have good safety. Compared with AC therapy alone, both PMT and CDT therapy resulted in a higher clinical efficacy rate, reduced the severity of PTS within 2 years, and reduced the cost of PTS. From the perspective of the cost-effectiveness ratio, within a certain range of treatment efficacy, AC therapy alone incurs the lowest cost per 1% improvement in therapeutic effect. The cost-effectiveness results show that if decision-makers consider the standard for improving the cure rate of lower limb deep vein thrombosis by 1% to be lower than the ratio of incremental cost to effect, then AC therapy alone is chosen. If decision-makers consider the standard for improving the cure rate of lower limb deep vein thrombosis by 1% to be higher than the ratio of incremental cost to effect, then the choice is AC plus CDT treatment.