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).