Contents

Cost-Effectiveness of Bariatric Surgery, Glucagon-Like Peptide-1 Receptor Agonists, Intensive Lifestyle Therapy, and Liberal Waitlisting in Adults With Obesity Undergoing Kidney Transplant Evaluation: A United States Decision-Analytic Study Using 2015–2023 Public Evidence

Abstract

Background: Obesity remains a major barrier to kidney transplantation despite the survival benefit of transplantation over dialysis. This study evaluated the cost-effectiveness of four strategies for adults with end-stage kidney disease and obesity undergoing kidney transplant evaluation in the United States. Methods: A state-transition Markov cohort model was developed from the health-sector perspective. Four strategies were compared: liberal waitlisting, bariatric surgery, glucagon-like peptide-1 receptor agonist therapy, and intensive lifestyle management. Inputs were drawn from publicly available evidence published between 2015 and 2023. The primary outcome was the incremental cost-effectiveness ratio per quality-adjusted life-year gained. Results: Over a 10-year horizon, liberal waitlisting had the lowest discounted cost ($246,100), whereas bariatric surgery had the highest discounted effectiveness (4.891 quality-adjusted life-years). Compared with liberal waitlisting, bariatric surgery increased cost by $35,400 and effectiveness by 0.079 quality-adjusted life-years, yielding an incremental cost-effectiveness ratio of $448,101 per quality-adjusted life-year gained, above conventional U.S. willingness-to-pay thresholds. Glucagon-like peptide-1 receptor agonist therapy improved outcomes versus lifestyle management but remained less efficient than bariatric surgery. Conclusions: Liberal waitlisting was the economically preferred strategy in the 10-year base-case analysis. Bariatric surgery produced the greatest health gain but was not cost-effective relative to liberal waitlisting, while glucagon-like peptide-1 receptor agonist therapy improved on lifestyle management without surpassing the other strategies in overall economic performance.

Keywords: kidney transplantation; obesity; bariatric surgery; glucagon-like peptide-1 receptor agonists; cost-effectiveness; decision analysis; Markov model
Copyright © 2024 Josh Levitsky, Andrew Martin. This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.