The clinical implications and cost-effectiveness of the provision of medical in addition to surgical catheter insertion for peritoneal dialysis in people with kidney failure.

Background: High-quality and timely peritoneal access is essential for effective peritoneal dialysis (PD). Existing comparisons of medical compared to surgical catheter insertion have focused on the incidence of catheter events, but the cost-effectiveness of providing medical in addition to surgical catheter insertion in a dual pathway, compared to providing surgical insertion alone has not been evaluated.

Methods: Data from the UK Catheter study, exploring how patient, service and insertion technique factors interact was used to estimate the comparative rates of catheter events between medical and surgical catheter insertion. A cost-effectiveness model estimates the health benefits and costs of providing medical in addition to surgical catheter insertion, compared to surgical insertion alone. Parametric modelling estimated time to catheter events, haemodialysis and transplantation to populate the model.

Results: Data on 769 first catheter insertions informs the model (325 medical and 444 surgical). Fewer catheter events were observed with medical insertion. The dual insertion pathway (69% medical, 31% surgical) was therefore associated with lower lifetime catheter events (3.18 vs. 3.34) and longer time on PD (3.07 vs. 3.00 years) than a purely surgical insertion pathway. The lifetime mean differences in quality-adjusted life years (7.12 vs. 7.00) and near identical costs (£226,549 vs. £226,764) meant dual insertion pathway was likely to be cost-effective, a finding robust to a series of sensitivity analyses.

Conclusion: Offering medical in addition to surgical catheter insertion techniques has the potential to improve clinical outcomes and is likely to be highly cost-effective compared to surgical insertion alone.