TRIP

Bariatric surgery may be cost-effective for obesity with type 2 diabetes

The Diabetes Elf, 2012

An economic evaluation reported by the Centre for Reviews and Dissemination concludes that bariatric surgery, whether gastric bypass or gastric band, is cost-effective in a US payor setting.
In severely obese people with type 2 diabetes, is bariatric surgery cost-effective compared with usual care?
Although it resulted in greater overall costs than usual care, bariatric surgery was considered cost-effective because it reduced weight and improved quality of life.
Compared with usual care, the incremental cost per QALY gained was $7,000 for bypass surgery, and $11,000 for banding surgery, in newly diagnosed patients.
It was $12,000 for bypass surgery, and $13,000 for banding surgery, in patients with established diabetes.
The estimates of the benefits of bariatric surgery may not be reliable, because they did not derive from a randomised trial that directly compared the two alternative methods.  Similarly, the methods for deriving estimates of quality of life were not clearly reported.