There is increasing use of economic evaluation to support decision-makers in health services for allocation of scarce healthcare resources. However, information necessary for economic evaluations cannot always be derived from well-conducted prospective clinical studies, and decision-analytical...

Objective: The aim of the present study is to describe a refinement of a previously presented method, based on the concept of point sensitivity, to deal with uncertainty in economic studies. Design: The original method was refined by the incorporation of probability distributions which allow a...

This article presents the first version of the reporting format for economic valuation that was created in 1995 by a multidisciplinary taskforce. The members of this taskforce come from a broad spectrum of backgrounds within the healthcare field and participated in the exercise voluntarily. The...

Objective: To determine the cost effectiveness of adjunctive therapy with entacapone versus standard treatment (levodopa) without entacapone for patients in the US with Parkinson's disease (PD) who experience `off-time' (re-emergence of the symptoms of PD) while receiving levodopa. Study Design:...

Objective: To assess the cost effectiveness of palivizumab (a preventative treatment against severe respiratory syncytial virus [RSV] infection) in children at high risk of hospitalisation, i.e. preterm infants =35 weeks gestation, children with bronchopulmonary dysplasia (BPD) and children with...

Health economic modelling studies are of interest to many parties with different responsibilities and diverging interests. Therefore, it is obvious that recognising the relevance of statistical uncertainty and dealing with it appropriately are required to obtain unbiased results from health...

Background: Reimbursement of new drugs is usually based on the budgetary impact of a new drug but there is also increasing demand for cost-effectiveness data on new drugs. Objective: To present a modelling technique (methodology) for an appropriate assessment of the budgetary impact of a new...

Objective: To assess the cost effectiveness of emedastine, a new antihistamine, versus levocabastine in the treatment of acute allergic conjunctivitis (AAC) in Belgium, France, Germany, The Netherlands, Norway, Portugal and Sweden. Design and setting: Randomised double-blind multicountry...

Economic analysis has become increasingly important in healthcare in general, and particularly with respect to pharmaceuticals. Therefore, it is vital that the methods used in such evaluations are carefully scrutinised and refined. However, guidelines contain only a limited number of...

This article explores the need to perform pharmacoeconomic evaluations of herbal medicines and assesses the extent to which this approach has been applied so far to these products. There seems to be no compelling need for pharmacoeconomic analyses of herbal over-the-counter medicines, but such...