A comparative study of treatment interventions for patellar tendinopathy: a secondary cost-effectiveness analysis.

OBJECTIVE

To compare the cost-effectiveness of three patellar tendinopathy treatments.

DESIGN

Secondary (cost-effectiveness) analysis of a blinded, randomised controlled trial, with follow-up at 10 and 22 weeks.

SETTINGS

Recruitment was performed in sport clubs. The diagnosis and the intervention were carried out at San Jorge University.

PARTICIPANTS

The participants were adults between 18 and 45 years (n = 48) with patellar tendinopathy.

INTERVENTIONS

Participants received percutaneous needle electrolysis, dry needling or sham needling, all of which were combined with eccentric exercise.

MAIN OUTCOME MEASURES

Costs, quality-adjusted life years and incremental cost-effectiveness ratio were calculated for each group.

RESULTS

The total cost per session was similar in the three groups: €9.46 for the percutaneous needle electrolysis group; €9.44 for the dry needling group; and €8.96 for the sham group. The percutaneous needle electrolysis group presented better cost-effectiveness in terms of quality-adjusted life years and 96% and 93% probability of being cost-effective compared to the sham and dry needling groups, respectively.

CONCLUSION

Our study shows that percutaneous needle electrolysis has a greater probability of being cost-effective than sham or dry needling treatment.