BACKGROUND To evaluate the various treatments for patients with hormone-refractory prostate cancer with bone metastases using a Markov model. METHODS AND MATERIALS The base case to be evaluated was of a man with hormone-refractory prostate cancer. The evaluated palliative treatments were pain medication only, chemotherapy consisting of mitoxantrone and prednisone, and single- and multifractio...

BACKGROUND AND PURPOSE The cost-effectiveness of dabigatran for stroke prevention in patients with atrial fibrillation and prior stroke or transient ischemic attack has not been directly assessed. METHODS A Markov decision model was constructed using data from the Randomized Evaluation of Long-Term Therapy (RE-LY) trial, other trials of warfarin therapy for atrial fibrillation, and the publis...

AIM To perform a systematic review on the costs and cost-effectiveness of concomitant and adjuvant temozolomide with radiotherapy for the treatment of newly diagnosed glioblastoma compared with initial radiotherapy alone. METHODS Electronic databases were searched for relevant publications on costs and cost-effectiveness until October 2008. RESULTS We found four relevant clinical trials, on...

Cost-effectiveness analysis made its first appearance in the health care literature more than 4 decades ago. In Britain, the National Institute of Clinical Excellence (NICE) explicitly considers cost per quality-adjusted life year (QALY) gained among its criteria for coverage recommendations to the National Health Service; some observers have inferred that explicit criteria such as £30,000 per ...

We design and conduct a stated-preference survey to estimate willingness to pay (WTP) to reduce foodborne risk of acute illness and to test whether WTP is proportional to the corresponding gain in expected quality-adjusted life years (QALYs). If QALYs measure utility for health, then economic theory requires WTP to be nearly proportional to changes in both health quality and duration of illness...

1 From the Julius Center for Health Sciences and Primary Care (E.B., P.J.N., T.B.v.d.W., Y.v.d.G.) and Depts of Radiology (W.P.T.M.M.), Neurology (L.J.K.), and Vascular Surgery (B.C.E.), Univ Medical Center Utrecht, Heidelberglaan 100, Rm D01.335, 3584 CX Utrecht, the Netherlands; Program for Assessment of Radiologic Technology, Dept of Epidemiology and Biostatistics, and Dept of Radiology, Era...

BACKGROUND In many countries, the incremental cost-effectiveness ratio (ICER) is used to assess whether an intervention is worth its costs. At the same time, policy makers often feel uncomfortable with refusing reimbursement of any intervention purely on the basis of the fact that the ICER exceeds a specific threshold value. Reluctance to define a single threshold value for the ICER seems to ha...

INTRODUCTION Patients who require prolonged mechanical ventilation (PMV) are increasing and producing financial burdens worldwide. This study determines the cost per QALY (quality-adjusted life year), out-of-pocket expenses, and lifetime costs for PMV patients stratified by underlying diseases and cognition levels. METHODS A nationwide sample of 50,481 patients with continual mechanical venti...