A new study indicates traditional laparoscopic hysterectomy surgery is not only less expensive than robotic-assisted laparoscopic hysterectomy but the two approaches result in similar clinical outcomes, according to a news release from Johnson & Johnson.
The study, “Comparing Robot-Assisted to Conventional Laparoscopic Hysterectomy: Impact on Cost and Clinical Outcomes,” was published in the October electronic edition of Journal of Minimally Invasive Gynecology and was sponsored by Ethicon Endo-Surgery. It reviewed 36,188 patient records from 358 hospitals from the Premier hospital data.
The study investigators found that robot-assisted hysterectomy procedure costs $1,971 more, on average, for outpatient procedures and $2,667 more for inpatient procedures than traditional laparoscopic hysterectomy surgery, and with no difference in outcomes, according to the release.
“Robot-assisted surgery can provide advancement in minimally invasive procedures for a very select, more complex type of procedure, such as laparoscopic prostatectomy or gynecologic oncology,” said Resad P. Pasic, MD, PhD, University of Louisville, Ky., one of the lead investigators for the study, according to the release. “However, our study showed that in routine hysterectomy procedures, where traditional laparoscopic approaches can achieve the same clinical outcomes at a much lower cost to hospitals and with shorter operating time, there is no value proposition to use the robot for routine hysterectomy.”
Read the Johnson & Johnson news release about laparoscopic hysterectomy.
