Cost analysis of total knee replacement surgery / 中华骨科杂志

ABSTRACT

Objective To analyze the composition of hospital cost for total knee replacement (TKR)in recent years in order to improve the effectiveness of TKR,reduce its complications and extend the TKR more widely in China.Methods The data was obtained for primary unilateral TKA performed in2001,1998,1995compared with that performed in1992in Peking University People's Hospital.There were no postoperative complications and other surgical treatments during the hospitalization period.Results From1992through2001,prosthetic and physical therapy cost were predominantly increased214.2%and318.0%respectively in1998;219.8%and291.4%respectively in2001.The least cost was hospital room and blood transfusion fee.Among all the hospital costs in these four individual years,the most expensive was at-tributed to prosthesis cost,reached as54.7%,56.1%,56.0%and63.3%of total costs respectively.The influ-enced factors of the increasing hospital costs for TKR were as following:1)The using of imported knee im-plants increased in achieving better post-operative function of knee;2)The expensive imported antibiotic was widely used because of high drug-resistance due to the abuse of antibiotics;3)The anti-coagulative drugs on account of reducing the incidence of post-operative DVT was widely accepted;4)The emphasis on physical therapy was more considered.The possible factors of the decreasing hospital costs for TKR were using less expensive home-made antibiotics in short time just to prevent infections,reducing the length of hospital stay by enough preparation before operation,improving surgical technique and adopting preoperative blood salvage and re-transfusion to reduce the blood transfusion cost.Conclusion Through the analysis of total hospi tal cost of TKR in recent ten years,the prosthesis cost accounted for the most proportion,and the in crease of the hospital cost was attributed to prosthesis,anti-coagulative drugs,antibiotics and physical ther-apy.At same time,the average postoperative ROM of knee increased from93.6?to112.3?,and the in ci-dence of compli cations decreased from10.3%to5.3%.The better result of TKR,satisfactory knee function and the life quality of patient were obtained.