BACKGROUND To evaluate the cost-effectiveness of growth hormone (GH) treatment (Genotropin®) compared with no GH treatment in adults with GH deficiency in a Swedish societal setting. METHODS A Markov-type cost-utility simulation model was constructed and used to simulate, for men and women, morbidity and mortality for GH-treated and -untreated individuals over a 20-year period. The calculatio...

Three studies report estimates of the cost and effectiveness of alternate strategies for screening the average-risk Australian population for colorectal cancer. The options considered are faecal occult blood testing, double contrast barium enema, sigmoidoscopy and colonoscopy. At present, there is no consensus over which screening method is optimal by the economic criterion. Also, the existing ...

BACKGROUND Adult Helicobacter pylori-positive patients by 13C-urea breath test with uninvestigated dyspepsia symptoms were randomized to 1-week eradication treatment with omeprazole, metronidazole and clarithromycin (OMC) vs. omeprazole and placebo antimicrobials (OPP) in the Canadian Adult Dyspepsia Empiric Treatment-H. pylori-positive (CADET-Hp) study. AIM To perform an economic evaluation ...

Even though the problem of network topology design is often studied as a “clean-slate” optimization, in practice most service-provider and enterprise networks are designed incrementally over time. This evolutionary process is driven by changes in the underlying parameters and constraints (the “environment”) and it aims to minimize the modification cost after each change in the environment. In t...

Objective: To assess the cost-efficacy of three fixed-combination glaucoma treatments currently available in Spain [bimatoprost with timolol (BT)Ganfort®, latanoprost with timolol (LT) Xalacom®, and travoprost with timolol (TT) DuoTrav®]. Methods: Because no studies are available that give a direct comparison of these drugs, a systematic review was carried out to assess their efficacy. Resource...

Venous ulcers are the most common chronic wounds of the lower leg. Skin substitutes recently have been introduced to stimulate nonhealing wounds. To conduct an incremental cost-effectiveness analysis, a model was developed to compare the four-layer bandage system, with and without one application of skin substitute, for the outpatient treatment of venous leg ulcers. The model estimated the cost...

One of the principal therapeutic options in unresectable carcinoma of exocrine pancreas is concomitant radiochemotherapy. However, in current scientific literature cost analyses of this therapeutic modality are lacking. A payer-oriented cost-effectiveness analysis of concomitant radiochemotherapy was carried out. Outcomes and differences in costs relatively to two different therapeutic strategi...

It is essential to reduce the cost of integrating information sources and to provide a path that allows for incremental integration that can be responsive to users' demands. This paper presents an approach to integrating disparate heterogeneous information sources that uses context logic. Our use of context logic reduces the up-front cost of integration, provides an incremental integration path...

PURPOSE To assess the cost effectiveness and cost utility of an organized screening programme for glaucoma. The previous cost-effectiveness studies of screening show inconsistent results, and the cost utility of screening has not been assessed. METHODS An organized screening programme was simulated using Markov modelling in a population aged 50-79 years at 5 year intervals. The programme ende...

OBJECTIVE The aim of the study was to determine the cost-effectiveness, from the third-party payer viewpoint, of galantamine compared with usual care in the treatment of mild to moderately severe Alzheimer's disease (AD). METHODS An existing Markov model was adapted to Korea to predict long-term outcomes over a 5-year time horizon and to estimate the cost-effectiveness of galantamine for the ...