Results:
Itemised and total costs for surgical setup for the two groups were calculated (Table 1 and 2) and the surgical set up costs were compared. The total cost for operative setups for microscopic and endoscopic surgery were £416.58 and £199.88 respectively, with a cost saving of £216.70 in the endoscopic surgery group. These cost analyses included costs of sterilisable and disposable units used in both setups. They did not include purchase of any new equipment.
Operating theatre records for the consultant surgeon were used to calculate the average operative time for both procedures; it was 186.3 minutes for the microscopic group and 127.3 mins for the endoscopic group. This equalled a mean timesaving of 59 minutes when performing the endoscopic approach.
Anaesthetic maintenance costs were calculated based on the surgical duration (Table 3), with a mean cost saving of £66.52 for the endoscopic surgery group. Similarly, operative theatre running costs were £1180 cheaper for endoscopic surgery.
An overview of the overall cost comparison between the two surgical groups (Table 4) indicated a cost saving of £1463.22 when performing total endoscopic surgery. A two sample t -test which did not assume equal variances was performed, indicating that this cost saving was significant (p<0.001).