A study published recently in Neurosurgery estimates the lifetime economic costs of spinal cord injury (SCI) associated with hospitalizations in relation to American Spinal Injury Association Impairment Scale (AIS) grade.
Patients with less severe SCI spend fewer days hospitalized over their lifetimes, leading to lower costs of inpatient care. Therefore, the study suggests, rehabilitation therapies aimed at improving a patient’s AIS grade following a thoracic SCI may help provide cost savings.
The study specifically points to a lifetime net present value cost savings of about $72,000 for patients with thoracic AIS B SCI as compared to patients with thoracic AIS A SCI, and of about $132,500 for patients with thoracic AIS C SCI as compared to patients with thoracic AIS A SCI, according to a media release from InVivo Therapeutics Holdings Corp.
“This article is a valuable contribution to the literature regarding the economic burden of spinal cord injury. This is one of the first articles to evaluate a key component of long-term treatment cost by AIS grade and level of injury and establishes that improvement in AIS grade may be associated with cost savings,” says Dr Steven Kirshblum, director of the Spinal Cord Injury Program at the Kessler Institute and one of the study’s authors, in the release.
“We are very pleased to have our first publication regarding the financial burden of illness of spinal cord injury and the potential economic impact of patients converting to less severe AIS grade,” states Mark Perrin, CEO and chairman of InVivo Therapeutics.
“This publication focuses on the re-hospitalization costs associated with patients with different AIS grades, but there are also many other direct healthcare costs and indirect costs, such as lost wages, associated with SCI. In the future, we plan to continue to evaluate the burden of illness by AIS grade and to publish additional findings,” Perrin adds.
[Source(s): InVivo Therapeutics Holdings Corp, Business Wire]
