There are numerous studies examining the pharmacoeconomic impact of HMG-CoA reductase inhibitor (statin) therapy on healthcare costs and outcomes. A recently published review demonstrated that the cost-benefit of these agents depends primarily on the risk of developing a coronary event. That is,...

Objective: To use the social welfare function to decide on allocation of resources between smoking cessation methods and lovastatin treatment of hypercholesterolaemia for the primary prevention of coronary heart disease. Method: Three smoking cessation therapies (medical advice, nicotine gum and...

Although rabies in domestic and wild animals represents a significant threat to public health and can cause economic losses among livestock, there are very few studies that examine the economics of rabies in animals. The literature that does exist can be characterised as poorly documented...

Objective: Recognising the importance of treating hyperlipidaemia, the National Cholesterol Education Program (NCEP) has established widely accepted treatment goals for low density lipoprotein cholesterol (LDL-C). Medications used most commonly to achieve these LDL-C goals are HMG-CoA reductase...

Adverse drug events occur frequently and lead to a significant number of fatalities each year. It has been estimated that fatalities directly attributable to adverse drug reactions are the fourth to sixth leading cause of death in US hospitals, exceeding deaths caused by pneumonia and diabetes....

A greater understanding of value associated with new pharmaceutical products should lead to better decision-making. Most commonly cost-effectiveness ratios (CERs) are used to indicate value; however, researchers have recently shown that CER estimates are rarely used by decision-makers in making...

This article describes the components that should be included as indirect costs to be consistent with economic theory in studies conducted from a societal perspective. The recently proposed method of how to estimate indirect costs, the friction-cost approach, is shown to exclude many aspects of...

Objective: To review studies on the costs of diabetes and its complications through a scheme designed specifically for assessing the quality of cost-of-illness (COI) studies. Design and Setting: The methodology of COI studies in diabetes was analysed in order to assess the significance of...

Background: Despite the considerable amount of work that has gone into the standardisation of costs, a recent survey indicated that there is still a wide variation in methods used in costing studies in the published literature. Part of the answer to the lack of standardisation may lie in...