RESUMO
BACKGROUND: The costs for treating coronary artery disease (CAD) are high worldwide. We performed a prespecified analyses of cost-effectiveness of three therapeutic strategies for multivessel CAD. METHODS: From May 1995 to May 2000, a total of 611 patients were randomly assigned to coronary artery bypass graft (CABG), n = 203; percutaneous coronary intervention (PCI), n = 205; or medical treatment (MT), n = 203. This cost analysis study was based on the perspective of the Public Health Care System. Initial procedural and follow-up costs for medications, cardiology examinations, and hospitalizations for complications were calculated after randomization. Life-years and quality-adjusted life years (QALYs) were used as effectiveness measures. Incremental cost-effectiveness ratios (ICER) were obtained by using nonparametric bootstrapping methods with 5000 resamples. RESULTS: Initial procedural costs were lower for MT. However, the subsequent 5-year cumulative costs were lower for CABG. Compared with baseline, the three treatment options produced significant improvements in QALYs. After 5 years, PCI and CABG had better QALYs results compared with MT. The ICER results favored CABG and PCI, and favored PCI over CABG in 61% of the drawings. On the other hand, sensitivity analysis showed MT as the preferred therapy compared with CABG and PCI, in the analysis considering higher costs. CONCLUSIONS: At 5-year follow-up, the three treatment options yielded improvements in quality of life, with comparable and acceptable costs. However, despite higher initial costs, the comparison of cost-effectiveness after 5 years of follow-up among the three treatments showed both interventions (CABG and PCI) to be cost-effective strategies compared with MT.Trial registration ISRCTN, ISRCTN66068876, Registered 06/10/1994, http://www.controlled-trials.com/ISRCTN66068876.