Cost-effectiveness of a high-sensitivity cardiac troponin T systematic screening strategy compared with usual care to identify patients with peri-operative myocardial injury after major noncardiac surgery

BACKGROUND About 300 million surgeries are performed worldwide annually and this figure is increasing constantly. Peri-operative myocardial injury (PMI), detected by cardiac troponin (cTn) elevation, is a common cardiac complication of noncardiac surgery, strongly associated with short- and long-term mortality. Without systematic peri-operative cTn screening, most cases of PMI may go undetected. However, little is known about cost effectiveness of a systematic PMI screening strategy with high-sensitivity cardiac troponin T (hs-cTnT) after noncardiac surgery. OBJECTIVE To assess, in patients with high cardiovascular risk, the cost-effectiveness of a systematic screening strategy using a hs-cTnT assay, to identify patients with PMI after major noncardiac surgery, compared with usual care. DESIGN Cost-effectiveness analysis; single centre prospective cohort study. SETTING Spanish University Hospital. PATIENTS From July 2016 to March 2019, we included 1477 consecutive surgical patients aged ≥65 or if <65, with documented history of cardiovascular disease or impaired renal function, who underwent major noncardiac surgery and required at least an overnight hospital stay. We excluded patients aged <65 years without cardiovascular disease, undergoing minor surgery, or with an expected <24 h hospital stays. INTERVENTIONS We conducted a decision-tree analysis, comparing a systematic screening strategy measuring hs-cTnT before surgery, and at the 2nd and 3rd days after surgery vs. a usual care strategy. We considered a third-party payer perspective and the outcomes of both strategies in the short-term (30 days follow-up). Information about costs was expressed in Euros-2021. We calculated the incremental cost-effectiveness ratio (ICER) of the systematic hs-cTnT strategy, defined as the expected cost per any additional PMI detected, and explored the robustness of the model using deterministic and probabilistic sensitivity analysis. MAIN OUTCOME MEASURES ICER of the systematic hs-cTnT screening strategy. RESULTS The ICER was €425 per any additionally detected PMI. The deterministic sensitivity analysis showed that a 15% variation in costs, and a 1% variation in the predictive values, had a minor impact over the ICER, except in case of the negative predictive value of the systematic hs-cTnT screening strategy. Monte Carlo simulations (probabilistic sensitivity analysis) showed that systematic hs-cTnT screening would be cost-effective in 100% of cases with a ‘willingness to pay’ of €780. CONCLUSIONS Our results suggest that systematic peri-operative PMI screening with hs-cTnT may be cost-effective in the short-term in patients undergoing major noncardiac surgery. Economic evaluations, with a long-term horizon, are still needed. TRIAL REGISTRATION Clinicaltrials.gov identifier: NCT03438448.