Economic evaluations in cancer have become increasingly important because of the rising incidence of the disease and the proliferation of effective therapies. The aging of the population and the increasing costs of care make it even more important to identify those treatments of greatest value from both an effectiveness and cost perspective. Economic research can be conducted at the "macro" lev...

In a climate of economic uncertainty, cost effectiveness analysis is a potentially important tool for making choices about health care interventions. Methods for such analyses are well established, but the results need to be interpreted carefully and are subject to bias. Making decisions based on results of cost-effectiveness analyses can involve setting thresholds, but for individual patients,...

The Medicare program has been a notable holdout in the global movement toward the use of cost-effectiveness analysis to inform health care decisions. Unlike the reimbursement authorities in Canada and Australia, and in many countries in Europe, Medicare officials do not formally consider cost-effectiveness when determining the coverage of new medical interventions, even as they also confront ev...