It was 74%-78% likely that electroconvulsive therapy would be cost effective, they added, based on commonly accepted cost-effectiveness thresholds, they said.
They found that third-line electroconvulsive therapy had an incremental cost-effectiveness ratio of $54,000 per quality-adjusted life-year. Based on that, investigators projected that the third-line strategy would be cost effective, considering a willingness-to-pay threshold of $100,000 per quality-adjusted life-year.
Although offering electroconvulsive therapy after two lines of pharmacotherapy/psychotherapy maximized its health-economic value in this analysis, the treatment still would be cost effective in patients with three or more previous treatments, authors said.
Based on those findings, Mr. Ross and his coauthors said they would recommend that patients with major depressive disorder be offered ECT when two or more trials of pharmacotherapy or psychotherapy have failed. That aligns with other recent recommendations, including 2017 Florida best practice guidelines that classify ECT as a level 3 treatment option, they said.