Click here to stream the public defence
Due to copyright issues, an electronic copy of the thesis must be ordered from the faculty. For the faculty to have time to process the order, the order must be received by the faculty at the latest 2 days before the public defence. Orders received later than 2 days before the defence will not be processed. After the public defence, please address any inquiries regarding the thesis to the candidate.
Trial Lecture – time and place
See Trial Lecture.
Adjudication committee
- First opponent: Assistant Professor Ioana Damian, UMF - Iuliu Hatieganu University of Medicine and Pharmacy, Romania
- Second opponent: Associate Professor Tomasz Choragiewicz, University of Lublin, Poland
- Third member and chair of the evaluation committee: Associate Professor Lumbwe Chola, University of Oslo
Chair of the Defence
Professor II Sverre Kittelsen, University of Oslo
Principal Supervisor
Professor II Goran Petrovski, University of Oslo
Summary
Retinal disorders are among the leading causes of visual impairment and blindness. The strategies to manage retinal disorders come with varying costs, follow-up needs and efficacy, hence economic challenges. Decision makers need to make informed policies and prioritize the optimal treatment strategies to manage retinal conditions.
The aims of this thesis were to fill the knowledge gap of estimating the economic cost burden and/or health benefit of utilizing alternative treatments for retinal disorders by: assessing the cost-effectiveness of delivering surgeries sequentially compared to combining the surgeries as double or triple procedures in maculopathy patients; estimating the cost of administering alternative intravitreal therapy (IVT) to treat diabetic macula edema (DME) as first-line of care, or as a switching treatment and quantifying the economic burden in hospital utilization and costs for laser therapy, IVT and surgeries among diabetic retinopathy patients using Oslo University Hospital data and secondary data from related publications.
The triple procedure was cost saving ($3582) with better health benefits, while the double procedure had similar health benefits and cost saving ($3731) compared to the single sequential procedures over the two-year study period.
For the first year of treatment, utilizing Dexamethasone for non-responsive DME patients in the healthcare perspective led to a cost saving of over 18% compared to Aflibercept, and for the new patients, Dexamethasone costs were found to be similar compared to Bevacizumab.
In a 14-year period, healthcare utilization increased for IVT (4.5% to 89%) and decreased for laser treatment (64% to 10%) and vitreoretinal surgeries (32% to 1%). The total cost increased more than 3 times.
The economic burden associated with retinal treatments needs to be considered in evaluating the optimal treatment benefits. The thesis results provide policy makers with key information for decision making in a priority setting.
Additional information
Contact the research support staff.