Use of Neuropad® as a screening test shown to be highly cost-effective

July 8, 2020
Clinical evidence, Done, Neuropad evidence, Neuropad screening test

This article “Cost-effectiveness analysis of the Neuropad device as a screening tool for early diabetic peripheral neuropathy” (Rodríguez-Sánchez et al., 2020) presents a cost-effectiveness analysis of using the Neuropad device as a screening tool for early diabetic peripheral neuropathy.

The study compares the use of Neuropad in combination with the standard care tool, the 10-g monofilament, to using the monofilament alone. The analysis is conducted from the healthcare provider perspective over a 3-year time horizon.

The results show that using both screening tools (Neuropad + monofilament) is a cost-effective strategy and leads to higher health gains and lower costs compared to using the monofilament alone. In fact, using both tests would result in a savings of £1049.26 per patient and a gain of 0.044 quality-adjusted life years (QALYs). The findings are consistent across sensitivity analyses.

The authors highlight the importance of early detection of diabetic peripheral neuropathy in order to prevent complications and ensure efficient allocation of resources within healthcare systems. They suggest that using both Neuropad and the monofilament as screening tools can help in the early identification of patients at risk of developing the diabetic foot syndrome.

About QALYs

A QALY (which stands for Quality-Adjusted Life Year) is a way to measure both how long and how well someone lives. Think of it like this:

Imagine living one year in perfect health — that’s worth 1 QALY.
If you live a year, but your health isn’t perfect (maybe you’re sick, in pain, or can’t do normal activities), that year might be worth less than 1 QALY, like 0.5 or 0.7.
If a treatment helps someone live longer and feel better, it increases their total QALYs.
If a treatment helps them live longer but still feel very sick, it might add more years, but not a lot of QALYs.

So, QALY is used by doctors, governments, and researchers to compare how good different treatments are — not just by how long people live, but how good those extra years are.