title: Cost-effectiveness of cataract surgery.
abstract: OBJECTIVE
  To review the changes in the cost-effectiveness of cataract surgery in the last few decades.
  
  
  RESULTS
  Cataract surgery is the commonly performed procedure and it has evolved through various techniques, namely extracapsular cataract extraction, phacoemulsification and small or microincision cataract surgery. In this article we have reviewed the healthcare variant analysis, mainly the cost-effectiveness and cost utility over the past few years.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  Cost-effectiveness implies the economic analysis of relative costs and practical outcomes after cataract surgery. Cost utility is typically in terms of cost per quality-adjusted life-year gained. Cost-utility values for cataract surgery for first eye varied from US$245 to US$22000/QALY in Western countries and from US$9 to US$1600 in developing countries. There are two methods that have been used to calculate the cost utility namely the costs that are discounted at 3% for 12 years and discounted at 3% for 5 years.
authors.affiliation: Dr Agarwal's Eye Hospital and Eye Research Centre, Chennai, India. dragarwal@vsnl.com
authors.forename: Amar
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Agarwal
authors.forename: Dhivya Ashok
authors.initials: DA
authors.lastname: Kumar
mesh_terms: D002387:Cataract Extraction / Q000191:economics*; D017281:Cost of Illness; D003362:Cost-Benefit Analysis; D003906:Developing Countries; D017048:Health Care Costs; D006801:Humans; D007194:India; D019057:Quality-Adjusted Life Years; D014481:United States