Background: Costs of inpatient days in hospitals are frequently the main drivers of total treatment costs, and their unit cost can markedly affect the outcomes of an economic evaluation. In many countries, the availability of unit cost data is limited and unit costs are often based on data from...

Background: Alzheimer's disease (AD) is a devastating illness that causes enormous emotional stress to affected families and is associated with substantial medical and nonmedical costs. Objective: To determine the effects of 28 weeks of memantine treatment for patients with AD on resource...

Piperacillin/tazobactam is a beta-lactam/beta-lactamase inhibitor combination with a broad spectrum of antibacterial activity against most Gram-positive and Gram-negative aerobic bacteria and anaerobic bacteria. Piperacillin/tazobactam is effective and well-tolerated in patients with lower...

Chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) is a major cause of mortality and morbidity. Relatively few pharmacoeconomic studies have been conducted on this disease. This article reviews available information about the utilisation of healthcare resources and cost of care, and the cost or cost...

About one-quarter of men aged 50 years and older experience voiding problems due to benign prostatic hyperplasia (BPH). Until about 10 years ago, surgery (particularly transurethral resection of the prostate) was the only effective treatment for symptomatic BPH. Over the last decade, several new...

Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) is a difficult to diagnose, fatal, progressive degenerative disease with an average survival time of 2 to 5 years. Percutaneous endoscopic gastrotomy (PEG) and bi-level intermittent positive pressure (BIPAP) ventilation may be the major interventions leading...

The incidence, morbidity and mortality of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) is rising throughout the world. The total economic cost of COPD in the US in 1993 was estimated to be over $US15.5 billion, with $US6.1 billion for hospitalisation, $US4.4 billion for physician and other fees,...

Most pharmacoeconomic studies of mycophenolate mofetil have focused on its use as part of maintenance immunosuppression for renal transplantation, involving short-term (3-12 months) time frames. In general, mycophenolate mofetil reduced the treatment costs for rejection episodes and graft...

Objective: To identify patterns of care and associated costs for typical patients with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) in a US managed-care setting. Design: Retrospective analysis of administrative data from a proprietary managed-care research database. Patients: 6371 patients with...

Many health plans and providers rely on return on investment (ROI) to determine the value of a disease management programme. ROI, however, is not the most meaningful measure of the true value of a programme. Depending on the methods used to calculate costs and determine the size of the...