Societal costs and quality of life analysis in patients undergoing resective epilepsy surgery: A one-year follow-up

Although effectiveness of Resective Epilepsy Surgery (RES) for patients with drug-resistant epilepsy (DRE) is widely proven, research on the impact of societal costs (SC) is lacking. The aim of this study is to provide both clinical and economic outcomes of RES by offering an overview of treatment effectiveness as well as SC of RES in a cohort of 30 Dutch DRE patients. This project serves as a pilot project to offer an up-to-date model for larger cost-effectiveness studies. Medical consumption, productivity losses, disease-specific and generic health-related quality of life (QoL), and seizure frequency were assessed before and 3-, 6-, and 12-months post-surgery with validated questionnaires. Linear mixed models, ANOVAs, and logistic regressions were performed. SC for the first year after RES entailed €54,376 and decreased over time. Moreover, 50% of patients experienced a clinically important increase in disease-specific QoL and 53% of patients in generic health-related QoL. Lastly, 73% of patients reached seizure freedom 12 months postoperative. Seizure reduction was correlated with increase in disease-specific QoL. Within one year after surgery, RES leads to reduction in SC and improvements in QoL over time. Future research should encompass longer follow-up periods, larger sample size, and a cost-effectiveness analysis with a comparator.