Abstract
In Response: We thank Dr. Bloomfield for his comments on our paper. Indeed, the economic evaluation of a medical procedure is complex. Our aim was to estimate cost differences between different anesthesia techniques and analyze the cost drivers behind them. To calculate the long-term economic impact of medical treatments and procedures is a very important, but very tricky, task. To calculate the cost of quality-adjusted life years for specific anesthesia procedures, as Dr. Bloomfield suggests, might be very difficult given the complex interaction of surgical and anesthesiological complications and the low morbidity and mortality achieved by modern anesthesia science. We absolutely agree that we will need much more solid data both on outcomes and on costs before we are able to realize such a long-term assessment of anesthesia techniques. Martin Schuster, MD, MA Andre Gottschalk, MD Thomas Standl, MD Department of Anesthesiology University Hospital Hamburg-Eppendorf Hamburg, Germany [email protected]
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