What This Means
This study used hospital records from more than 7,000 US adults who had a stent placed to reopen a blocked artery in the thigh or behind the knee. It compared hospital-based costs for two drug-coated stents, Eluvia and Zilver PTX. The cost of the initial procedure was about the same for both stents. After patients went home, however, those who received Eluvia had lower hospital costs over the next one and two years. The difference was about $4,017 at one year and $6,250 at two years after accounting for age, sex, race and whether patients had severe limb-threatening circulation problems.
The lower follow-up costs also appeared in patients treated during a hospital stay and in patients with kidney disease. They were not seen in patients with severe limb-threatening circulation problems, where the two stents did not differ significantly in cost. Patients who received Eluvia had more other health conditions, such as heart failure and kidney disease, yet still had lower follow-up hospital costs.
This research suggests Eluvia may be linked to lower later hospital costs, but it has important limits. The study looked back at existing records, so it cannot show that the stent itself caused the savings. It did not measure why costs differed, such as how often patients returned to the hospital. It also left out medication costs and any care received outside the participating hospitals. The results should therefore be read as hospital costs only, not total healthcare costs.