A new economic evaluation assessed the 10-year cost-effectiveness of metabolic and bariatric surgery (MBS) in adolescents with severe obesity using a microsimulation model of 100,000 patients. The simulated cohort had a mean age of 17 years, a mean BMI of 52.1 kg/m², and included 13.3% of participants with type 2 diabetes. Researchers compared no surgery, sleeve gastrectomy, and Roux-en-Y gastric bypass (RYGB) using data from the Teen-LABS study and evaluated outcomes in quality-adjusted life-years (QALYs) and healthcare costs.
Using a willingness-to-pay threshold of $100,000 per QALY gained, both surgical procedures were found to be cost-effective compared with no surgery. Sleeve gastrectomy achieved an ICER of $41,164 per QALY gained, while RYGB showed an ICER of $50,271 per QALY gained. Although RYGB generated the greatest health gains, its ICER reached $557,751 per QALY gained when…
