Costs and effectiveness of treatment alternatives for proximal caries lesions.
OBJECTIVE
Invasive therapy of proximal caries lesions initiates a cascade of re-treatment cycles with increasing loss of dental hard tissue. Non- and micro-invasive treatment aim at delaying this cascade and may thus reduce both the health and economic burden of such lesions. This study compared the costs and effectiveness of alternative treatments of proximal caries lesions.


METHODS
A Markov-process model was used to simulate the events following the treatment of a proximal posterior lesion (E2/D1) in a 20-year-old patient in Germany. We compared three interventions (non-invasive; micro-invasive using resin infiltration; invasive using composite restoration). We calculated the risk of complications of initial and possible follow-up treatments and modelled time-dependent non-linear transition probabilities. Costs were calculated based on item-fee catalogues in Germany. Monte-Carlo-microsimulations were performed to compare cost-effectiveness of non- versus micro-invasive treatment and to analyse lifetime costs of all three treatments.


RESULTS
Micro-invasive treatment was both more costly and more effective than non-invasive therapy, with ceiling-value-thresholds for willingness-to-pay between 16.73 € for E2 and 1.57 € for D1 lesions. Invasive treatment was the most costly strategy. Calculated costs and effectiveness were sensitive to lesion stage, patient's age, discounting rate and assumed initial treatment costs.


CONCLUSIONS
Non- and micro-invasive treatments have lower long-term costs than invasive therapy of proximal lesions. Micro-invasive therapy had the highest cost-effectiveness for treating D1 lesions in young patients. Decision makers with a willingness-to-pay over 16.73 € and 1.57 € for E2 and D1 lesions, respectively, will find micro-invasive treatment more cost-effective than non-invasive therapy.
Department of Operative and Preventive Dentistry, Charité - Universitätsmedizin Berlin, Berlin, Germany.
Falk
F
Schwendicke
Department of Operative Dentistry, Periodontology and Preventive Dentistry, RWTH Aachen University, Aachen, Germany.
Hendrik
H
Meyer-Lueckel
Kiel Institute for the World Economy, Kiel, Germany.
Michael
M
Stolpe
Clinic for Conservative Dentistry and Periodontology, Christian-Albrechts-University, Kiel, Germany.
Christof Edmund
CE
Dörfer
Department of Operative and Preventive Dentistry, Charité - Universitätsmedizin Berlin, Berlin, Germany.
Sebastian
S
Paris
D000367:Age Factors; D003198:Computer Simulation; D003362:Cost-Benefit Analysis; D003731:Dental Caries / Q000191:economics* / Q000532:radiotherapy / Q000628:therapy*; D005858:Germany; D006801:Humans; D008390:Markov Chains; D018803:Models, Economic; D009010:Monte Carlo Method; D055815:Young Adult