The Cost of Underutilization

Despite the considerable literature on the overuse of new medical technologies, little attention has been paid to the biologic and monetary costs that may be incurred by underuse. Percutaneous transluminal angioplasty as a treatment for peripheral vascular disease is an example of an important technology that has been underused. Although angioplasty alone is less costly but also less efficacious than surgery, a strategy that combines the two procedures (angioplasty first, then surgery if angioplasty is unsuccessful or if occlusion recurs) is uniformly superior to surgery alone in patients who have lesions for which angioplasty can be considered. From a nationwide perspective, if 40 per cent of all patients with iliac or femoral disease (or both) requiring intervention were treated with the combined strategy, there would be an estimated savings (as compared with surgery alone) of 352 lives and 82 million, as well as an additional 5006 patent limbs. Despite these advantages, the use of angioplasty during the period under consideration (up to 1980) was limited, possibly because of the mechanism of patient triage and the inertial forces that operate when a therapeutic method that appears effective--even if more complex and hazardous than a newer approach--has been widely applied.