Economic evaluation
A trial-based economic evaluation will be performed from both a societal—and healthcare perspective, with a time horizon of 12 months. First, a cost-utility analysis from a societal perspective will calculate the incremental societal costs per quality-adjusted life years (QALY). For this purpose, the EQ-5D-5L will be converted to utilities and hence to QALY’s. Second, a cost-effectiveness analysis from a healthcare perspective will be performed, in which incremental healthcare costs per SAE prevented will be calculated. Data will be analyzed according to “intention to treat.” Standard sensitivity- and bootstrap analyses will be performed to quantify the uncertainty of the costs and cost-effectiveness outcomes. The results of this analysis will be presented in cost-effectiveness planes and cost-effectiveness acceptability curves, showing for a range of threshold values for cost-effectiveness the probability that preoperative MDT is cost-effective. The cost calculation will be performed according to the Dutch guidelines for cost research [