Assessing cost-effectiveness in obesity: Laparoscopic adjustable gastric banding for severely obese adolescents

Abstract

Background: To assess, from a societal perspective, the incremental cost-effectiveness of laparoscopic adjustable gastric banding for severely obese adolescents in Australia. Methods: The intervention, modeled as a part of the Assessing Cost-Effectiveness in Obesity project, used evidence of the effectiveness and costs from a case series of 28 adolescents who had undergone gastric banding in Melbourne and extrapolated the data to the eligible Australian adolescent population. The cost offsets and disability-adjusted life year benefits (determined by the change in body mass index at 3 years after surgery) were tracked until the cohort had reached the age of 100 years or death and were discoun..