EUnetHTA published a project plan for the comparative effectiveness of surgical techniques and devices for the treatment of benign prostate hyperplasia

At the end of July 2020, the network of European HTA agencies, EUnetHTA, announced the final plan of the project OTCA27 “Comparative effectiveness of surgical techniques and devices for the treatment of benign prostatic hyperplasia (BPH).”

This project is being executed by the Italian Regione Emilia-Romagna and the Austrian Institute for Health Technology Assessment (AIHTA). The dedicated reviewers are the State Health Care Accreditation Agency under the Ministry of Health of the Republic of Lithuania (VASPVT), Swiss Network for Health Technology Assessment (SNHTA), and Italian Azienda Zero Region Veneto.

The rationale of this multi-technology assessment is to collaboratively produce structured (rapid) core HTA information on minimally invasive surgical treatments for Benign Prostatic Hyperplasia (BPH). In addition, the aim is to apply this collaboratively produced assessment in the national and/or regional context.

This rapid assessment will provide comparisons among different minimally invasive surgical treatments for BPH, in order to assess their relative effectiveness and safety in patients with an indication for surgical treatment and different subpopulations, according to prostate size. This topic was chosen based on a request from local decision-makers who commissioned the authors’ agency to carry out an HTA to assess the relative effectiveness and safety of minimally invasive surgical treatments compared to available alternatives.

The HTA Core Model Application for rapid Relative Effectiveness Assessment (REA) (4.2) will be the primary source for selecting assessment elements.

A systematic review of the scientific literature will be performed according to the Cochrane Handbook methodology - Version 2019. One high-quality systematic review with network meta-analysis published in November 2019, including Randomized Controlled Trials (RCTs) comparing different treatments addressed in this report was found. It will constitute the starting point for this assessment and the basis for setting and updating the search for RCTs to answer questions on effectiveness and safety. The Systematic Review production tool (RevMan 5) will also be used for data extraction, risk of bias representation, and SoF tables. As one high-quality systematic review was published in November 2019, the systematic search will be performed in the following databases having January 2019 as a starting date: Medline, Embase, and Cochrane Library. Scientific literature will be monitored to check the availability of newly published RCTs that could be included. These will eventually be listed.

The final version of this rapid assessment is expected to be published in March 2021.

The full details in English can be found here.

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