OBJECTIVES

Femoro-acetabular impingement (FAI) increases the risk of a person’s early onset osteoarthritis (OA) which leads to further damage of the hip joint urging the need for total hip replacement (THR). Hip arthroscopy has been proven to be a safe treatment for FAI with a shorter recovery time compared to open surgery or rehabilitation alone. This study will help identify and summarise economic evaluation studies to reach a conclusion if hip arthroscopy is considered cost effective or not.

METHODS

The study follows the Preferred Reporting Items Items for Systematic review and Meta-Analysis – Protocols (PRISMA-P) and the study itself follows the PRISMA statement guidelines. The articles included will be gathered from Medline, Scopus, Embase, Cochrane, EBSCO, Web of Science Core Collection and Google Scholar databases. Articles will then be exported to Mendeley reference manager software. All records will be screened for eligibility and data will be extracted into a spread sheet. The studies will be assessed for quality using the Joanna Briggs Institute Critical Appraisal Checklist for Economic Evaluations.

RESULTS

The study will looked at the incremental cost effectiveness ratios (ICER), health utility measures and the threshold against willingness to pay. All QALYs gained across the four studies included in the analysis were less than the threshold of willingness to pay per year. Three studies were from USA used a Markov Mode and showed 754$ and 21,700$ per QALY below WTP of minimum 50,000$. One study from the UK used linear regression modelling and showed 2,677£ per QALY which was below the WTP 20,000£.

CONCLUSIONS

This study shows that hip arthroscopy is cost-effective in FAI treatment in North America. This will reduce the burden of OA and need for THR. More studies in Europe and the UK are needed due to geographic and context differences.