Economic impact of initial glaucoma treatment with selective laser trabeculoplasty on the Brazilian Public Health System.

PURPOSE: To evaluate the economic impact of the following initial treatment scenarios for glaucoma on the Brazilian Public Health System (SUS): (1) traditional continuous instillation of hypotensive eye drops and (2) single session of selective laser trabeculoplasty.

METHODS

Economic impact was analyzed in three scenarios, from the least to the most conservative, for a hypothetical cohort of 5,000 individuals with open-angle glaucoma. Thereafter, projections were made on the basis of a glaucoma prevalence of 3% in the 2021 Brazilian population size.

RESULTS

All three scenarios demonstrated that selective laser trabeculoplasty exhibited a significantly lower economic impact than the eye drops on SUS over one and five years. Furthermore, the difference was more than United States Dollar 8 billion at five years when considering 3% of the Brazilian population aged >40 years in 2021.

CONCLUSION

As the initial treatment for primary open-angle glaucoma, selective laser trabeculoplasty exhibited a lower economic impact on SUS than latanoprost and timolol maleate eye drop instillation in all the studied scenarios over one and five-year periods.