The Cost-Effect Ratio of the Cyberknife: System Shows Promise Over Other Techniques

Ariana Gopal

Past research has indicated that the Cyberknife system, a form of stereotactic radiosurgery, shows promise as a means of treating various forms of cancer.  For example, this radiosurgery technique has had a positive impact on treating prostate cancer; it has been linked to lowering PSA values as well as increasing the amount of time patients treated with the technique are disease free (Davis et al., 2015).  Additionally, the Cyberknife has had a positive impact on reducing toxicities and improving pain for people treated for spinal lesions (Gerszten et al., 2004).

Although the Cyberknife system has had a positive impact on treating several types of cancer, there has been a lack of exploration regarding the cost-effect ratio of being treated with the Cyberknife versus other treatment methods.  This information will be evaluated in this assignment.

It has been indicated that radiation treatments can vary widely when cost is taken into consideration.  For example, a single treatment with standard radiation therapy can cost near $2,000 for one treatment, whereas treatment with the Cyberknife system is closer to $4,000 per treatment (Fawcett, 2009).  But in addition to the actual cost of the treatment, the actual outcomes and toxicities of the different treatments must also be taken into account in order to successfully evaluate the cost-effect ratio of the Cyberknife system.  Past research has compared the effects of the Cyberknife system to traditional radiation therapy, also known as external beam radiation therapy, or EBRT for short.  For example, a study conducted in 2009 used treatment outcomes and toxicities to compare the cost-effect ratio of the Cyberknife and EBRT (Papatheofanis et al., 2009).  The study showed that patients treated with Cyberknife had a higher net health benefit over those treated with EBRT and was calculated to be $1900 less than EBRT, indicative that the Cyberknife system is superior and more cost effective than EBRT (Papatheofanis et al., 2009).  Another study also compared these two treatment methods for cancer patients with spine metastasis.  The research indicated that treatment with the Cyberknife system was costlier, but had less pain and later stage toxicities associated with it when compared to the EBRT (Haley et al., 2011).  Additionally, people treated with EBRT were more likely to need additional radiation interventions than those treated with the Cyberknife (Haley et al., 2011).  Lastly, a study comparing Cyberknife radiosurgery to interventional microvascular decompression for patients with trigeminal neuralgia indicated that patients treated with the Cyberknife system had an average reduction in hospital costs of 34% per patient when compared to those treated with surgical intervention, indicative that it is more cost-efficient (Tarricone et al., 2008).

Overall, the scientific literature suggests that the Cyberknife system is more cost effective when compared to traditional radiation techniques as well as to surgical procedures, as indicated by Tarricone’s article.

Table 1 shows the average direct healthcare cost for patients evaluated in Tarricone et al.’s research. The table clearly indicates that the overall cost for the Cyberknife system was cheaper by over 2,000 Euros when compared to the microvascular decompression treatment. (Tarricone et al., 2008)

References

Davis, J., Sharma, S., Shumway, R., Perry, D., Bydder, S., Simpson, C. K., & D’ambrosio, D. (2015, December 04). Stereotactic Body Radiotherapy for Clinically Localized Prostate Cancer: Toxicity and Biochemical Disease-Free Outcomes from a Multi-Institutional Patient Registry. Cureus.

Fawcett, N. (2009). Radiation treatment costs vary widely by delivery, study finds. The University Record.

Gerszten, P., Ozhasoglu, C., Burton, S., Vogel, W., Atkins, B., Kalnicki, S., & Welch, W. (2004). Cyberknife frameless real-time image-guided stereotactic radiosurgery for the treatment of spinal lesions [Abstract]. Neurosurgery, 55(1).

Haley, M. L., Gerszten, P. C., Heron, D. E., Chang, Y., Atteberry, D. S., & Burton, S. A. (2011). Efficacy and cost-effectiveness analysis of external beam and stereotactic body radiation therapy in the treatment of spine metastases: A matched-pair analysis [Abstract]. Journal of Neurosurgery: Spine, 14(4), 537-542.

Papatheofanis, F. J., Williams, E., & Chang, S. D. (2009). Cost-Utility Analysis Of The Cyberknife System For Metastatic Spinal Tumors [Abstract]. Neurosurgery, 64 (SUPPLEMENT).

Tarricone, R., Aguzzi, G., Musi, F., Fariselli, L., & Casasco, A. (2008). Cost-effectiveness analysis for trigeminal neuralgia: Cyberknife vs microvascular decompression.  Neuropsychiatric Disease and Treatment, 4(3), 647-652.