BACKGROUND Treatment for patients with breast cancer (BC) is guided by human epidermal growth factor receptor 2 (HER2) status. The patient's HER2 status is assessed using US Food and Drug Administration-approved in vitro diagnostic (IVD) immunohistochemical (IHC) tests and laboratory-developed IVD tests. We analysed HER2 testing accuracy using data from the Nordic Immunohistochemistry Quality C...

Obesity is a public health, medical, legislative, environmental, and societal concern. Total direct cost of obesity in Canada is estimated to be over 1.8 billion dollars per year, representing approximately 2.4% of total health expenditures. According to the Canadian Community Health Survey, obesity rates have almost tripled in the past few decades, increasing to 15% in 2000-2001. Another 33% o...

About 2.5 million individuals worldwide are currently being affected by MS [1]. In Europe, mean annual cost per person with MS is estimated to be around €27,000 [2]. In the European Union, the estimated costs of MS are calculated to be at €9 billion per year [3]. In a survey among patients receiving Disease Modifying Drugs (DMD) in the United States in 2004, total average costs per patient were...

The Abbott RealTime human immunodeficiency virus type 1 (HIV-1) assay (ART) and the Cobas AmpliPrep/Cobas TaqMan HIV-1 test (CTM) are commercially available assays for quantification of HIV-1 RNA in plasma. We evaluated performance characteristics, workflow, throughput, reliability, and direct costs of these assays. Both assays yielded good correlation of quantitative results (r = 0.95) among c...

OBJECTIVE This study explores the fiduciary advantage of a Vascular Surgery program to an academic, tertiary care hospital. METHODS This is a retrospective review of hospital (HealthQuest) and physician (IDX) billing databases from April 2009 to September 2010. We identified all patients interacting with Vascular Surgery (VS) to provide an overview of global finances. Patients introduced sole...

OBJECTIVE To analyze the direct cost of reusable and disposable aprons in a public teaching hospital. METHOD Cross-sectional study of quantitative approach, focusing on the direct cost of reusable and disposable aprons at a teaching hospital in northern Paraná. The study population consisted of secondary data collected in reports of the cost of services, laundry, materials and supplies divisi...

Background: The economic burden of TB in India is enormous as TB perpetuates and exacerbates poverty. Revised National Tuberculosis Control Programme (RNTCP) based on DOTS strategy is currently being implemented in India. The purpose of this study is to estimate the costs incurred by tuberculosis patients treated under RNTCP in a district in Tamilnadu where services are decentralized for diagno...

In and out of government, determining the cost of illness is a major concern. The allocation of health care resources and the evaluation of current research and program efforts depend in large measure on such information. This article updates the 1963 benchmark study of the cost of illness. For the 16 major diagnostic categories of illnesses, the cost is presented in terms of the direct costs f...

BACKGROUND In low tuberculosis (TB) incidence countries TB affects mostly immigrants in the productive age group. Little empirical information is available about direct and indirect TB-related costs that patients face in these high-income countries. We assessed the direct and indirect costs of immigrants with TB in the Netherlands. METHODS A cross-sectional survey at 14 municipal health servi...

Selective screening and partner notification are two principal means of preventing and controlling syphilis in the United States, yet few studies have been undertaken to compare and evaluate the cost or effectiveness of detecting syphilis using either strategy. The objective of this paper is to assess from the perspective of a health department the cost-effectiveness of selective screening comp...