BACKGROUND Although widely applied, the cost-effectiveness of endovenous laser ablation (EVLT) for varicose veins has not been established. METHODS Cost-effectiveness analysis was performed on the evaluation of EVLT for the treatment of uncomplicated varicose veins by using published data from randomizd clinical trials regarding the costs and the quality of life. Incremental cost per quality-...

BACKGROUND Artificial bowel sphincter (ABS) and dynamic graciloplasty (DG) are surgical treatments for faecal incontinence (FI). FI may affect quality of life (QOL) so severely that patients are often willing to consider a permanent end stoma (ES). It is unclear which is the more cost-effective strategy. METHOD Probability estimates for patients with FI were obtained from published data (ABS,...

AIM To investigate the cost-effectiveness of a pharmacogenetic dosing algorithm versus a clinical dosing algorithm for coumarin anticoagulants in The Netherlands. MATERIALS & METHODS A decision-analytic Markov model was used to analyze the cost-effectiveness of pharmacogenetic dosing of phenprocoumon and acenocoumarol versus clinical dosing. RESULTS Pharmacogenetic dosing increased costs by...

BACKGROUND Fifty percent of people injured by whiplash still report neck pain after 1 year and costs associated with whiplash associated disorders (WAD) are mostly attributed to health service and sick-leave costs in chronic conditions. With increasing health care expenditures the economic impact of interventions needs to be considered. OBJECTIVE To analyze the cost-effectiveness of physiothe...

Abstract Background Oesophageal Cancer (OC) treatment levies substantial financial burden on Health Services and Best Supportive Care (BSC) outcomes are poor. Potentially Curative Surgery with or without Chemotherapy is offered to patients locally advanced disease this study aimed examine costs related life-years gained in having potentially curative (oesophagectomy) those receiving (BSC). Meth...

We performed a 1-year cluster-randomized field trial to assess the effect of standardized management of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) on lung function and quality of life (QOL) measures in patients in China. We used the Global Initiative for Chronic Obstructive Lung Disease (GOLD) treatment guidelines and assessed indexes including pulmonary function, QOL, quality-adjusted life y...

Background and aims Lung cancer has the highest mortality rate of all cancers worldwide. Non-small-cell lung cancer (NSCLC) accounts for 85% of all lung cancers and has an extremely poor prognosis. Afatinib is an irreversible ErbB family blocker designed to suppress cellular signaling and inhibit cellular growth and is approved in Europe after platinum-based therapy for squamous NSCLC. The obje...

INTRODUCTION Chronic asthma is a significant burden for individual sufferers, adversely impacting their quality of working and social life, as well as being a major cost to the National Health Service (NHS). Temperature-controlled laminar airflow (TLA) therapy provides asthma patients at BTS/SIGN step 4/5 an add-on treatment option that is non-invasive and has been shown in clinical studies to ...

This paper argues that the Quality Adjusted Life Year or QALY is fatally flawed as a way of priority setting in health care and of dealing with the problem of scarce resources. In addition to showing why this is so the paper sets out a view of the moral constraints that govern the allocation of health resources and suggests reasons for a new attitude to the health budget.

The goal of a therapeutic HIV vaccine is to attenuate HIV disease progression in those already infected. Our objective was to establish comparative efficacy and cost-effectiveness thresholds at which a therapeutic vaccine would make a valuable contribution to HIV care. Using an HIV computer simulation model, we compared therapeutic vaccination with HIV standard of care without vaccination. Inpu...