Health Care Utilization and Costs Associated With Blue-Light vs White-Light Cystoscopy: A Real-World Bladder Cancer Population
Mark D. Tyson, Mouneeb M. Choudry, Chad McKee, Shiv Kalaria, Cerise James, Nicole M. Engel-Nitz, Mary G. Johnson, Timothy L. BarnesPurpose:
Compared with white-light cystoscopy (WLC), blue-light cystoscopy (BLC) enhances detection of non–muscle-invasive bladder cancer (NMIBC), especially carcinoma in situ (CIS). However, its effects on health care resource utilization and cost burden have not been fully elucidated. This study assessed the economic implications of BLC vs WLC.
Materials and Methods:
We conducted a retrospective cohort analysis with claims data from the Optum Research Database between June 2011 and May 2023. Patients who underwent BLC or WLC were identified, and white-light patients were matched 6:1 to blue-light patients by index year and time between bladder cancer diagnosis and cystoscopy. Inverse probability of treatment weighting was used to adjust for baseline differences. Health care resource utilization and total and bladder cancer–specific costs were calculated on a per-patient-per-month basis.
Results:
The final cohort included 794 blue-light and 4764 white-light patients. Before weighting, claims coded for CIS were more frequent in blue-light patients (19.6% vs 8.8%;
Conclusions:
BLC is associated with greater health care resource utilization for NMIBC without significantly elevating health care costs, suggesting that enhanced diagnostic strategies can be implemented without added financial burden in real-world practice.