BACKGROUND Heart failure disease management programs can influence medical resource use and quality-adjusted survival. Because projecting long-term costs and survival is challenging, a consistent and valid approach to extrapolating short-term outcomes would be valuable. METHODS We developed the Tools for Economic Analysis of Patient Management Interventions in Heart Failure Cost-Effectiveness...

OBJECTIVE To estimate the costs and effects of different treatment strategies with intrapartum antibiotic prophylaxis to prevent early-onset group B streptococcal (GBS) disease in the Netherlands. The treatment strategies include a risk-based strategy, a screening-based strategy, a combined screening/risk-based strategy and the current Dutch guideline. DESIGN Cost-effectiveness analysis based...

We explored potential cost-effectiveness of a chlamydia vaccine for young women in the United States by using a compartmental heterosexual transmission model. We tracked health outcomes (acute infections and sequelae measured in quality-adjusted life-years [QALYs]) and determined incremental cost-effectiveness ratios (ICERs) over a 50-year analytic horizon. We assessed vaccination of 14-year-ol...

INTRODUCTION Case detection by passive case finding (PCF) strategy alone is inadequate for detecting all tuberculosis (TB) cases in high burden settings especially Sub-Saharan Africa. Alternative case detection strategies such as community Active Case Finding (ACF) and Household Contact Investigations (HCI) are effective but empirical evidence of their cost-effectiveness is sparse. The objectiv...

OBJECTIVE Invasive cervical cancer (ICC) is the fourth most common cancer among women worldwide. Cervical screening programs have reduced the incidence and mortality rates of ICC. We studied the cost-effectiveness of different cervical screening strategies in the Islamic Republic of Iran, a Muslim country with a low incidence rate of ICC. METHODS We constructed an 11-state Markov model, in wh...

BACKGROUND Many clinical guidelines have adopted a multifactorial cardiovascular risk assessment to identify high-risk individuals for treatment. The Framingham risk chart is a widely used risk engine to calculate the absolute cardiovascular risk of an individual. Cost-effective analyses are typically used to evaluate therapeutic strategies, but it is more problematic for a clinician when faced...

OBJECTIVE We analyzed the cost-effectiveness (CE) and performances of commonly used prenatal Down syndrome (DS) screening strategies. STUDY DESIGN We performed computer simulations to compare 8 screening options by applying empirical data from Serum, Urine, and Ultrasound Screening Study trials on the population of 110,948 pregnancies. Screening strategies outcomes, CE ratios, and incremental...

UNLABELLED One of the most controversial issues in anesthesia is whether nonmedically directed nurse anesthetists are relatively more cost-effective than anesthesiologists in the provision of anesthesia care. We electronically surveyed anesthesia practices throughout the United States to estimate the range in anesthesia professional costs from the payer perspective. Using this survey data on an...

Dr Byrd and colleagues have published a cost-effectiveness analysis of transoral robotic surgery (TORS) in patients with an unknown primary. Using “proportion of primary sites identified” as the marker of effectiveness, the authors examine 3 strategies: evaluation under anesthesia (EUA) and tonsillectomy, EUA/tonsillectomy followed by TORS base-of-tongue resection (sequential EUA/TORS), and EUA...

The spring constant of an atomic force microscope cantilever is often needed for quantitative measurements. The calibration method of Sader et al. [Rev. Sci. Instrum. 70, 3967 (1999)] for a rectangular cantilever requires measurement of the resonant frequency and quality factor in fluid (typically air), and knowledge of its plan view dimensions. This intrinsically uses the hydrodynamic function...