Review of NICE Technology Appraisal Guidance No.157; Dabigatran etexilate for the prevention of venous thromboembolism after hip or knee replacement surgery in adults

Proposal to move guidance to the static list

As you may be aware the planned date for review of the above guidance is June 2011. 

This is the date at which the Institute decides whether sufficient new evidence has emerged for the Appraisal Committee to be asked to undertake a full review appraisal. 

Since TA157 was issued, NICE has published a clinical guideline CG92; ‘Venous thromboembolism: reducing the risk of venous thromboembolism (deep vein thrombosis and pulmonary embolism) in inpatients undergoing surgery’. Although the clinical guideline does not reproduce the wording of TA157 verbatim, the recommendation has been effectively incorporated in that dabigatran is included in the list of options for pharmacological VTE prophylaxis after surgery in both elective hip and elective knee replacement. There is no new evidence to suggest that this recommendation should change.  Consequently NICE proposes that this Technology Appraisal should be moved to the static list.

Moving TA157 to the static list means that the Technology Appraisal guidance will remain extant alongside the clinical guideline. This has the effect of preserving the funding direction. The review decision date for the clinical guideline is January 2013. If it is decided that the clinical guideline should be reviewed, then a new proposal for TA157 can be developed during the pre-scoping stages of that guideline. 

Topics on the static list may be transferred back to the active list for further consideration if new evidence becomes available that is likely to have a material effect on the last guidance issued.

In order to be completely confident that this is appropriate, we are asking all relevant consultees and commentators, to inform us of any evidence which will help us decide the best way to update this guidance. 

Please see appendix A for a full list of the organisations we have contacted. 

June 2011