Pharmacological treatment of hypertension has been shown to reduce the risk of stroke, coronary events, heart failure and progression of renal disease. However, rates of successful blood pressure control remain low among treated patients while antihypertensive medication represents a large and...

The serotonin 5-HT3 receptor antagonists or `setrons' have become the standard of care for the prevention of chemotherapy-induced emesis (CIE) and are first-line therapy for acute CIE in healthcare organisations worldwide. However, their superior efficacy versus standard antiemetics comes at a...

Objective: To describe the economic impact of age-related macular degeneration (AMD) and to assess its medical and non-medical costs. Design and settings: An observational study was carried out in 105 patients in two French centres in a sample of 105 French patients. All consecutive patients,...

Objective: This paper examined the economic cost of male erectile dysfunction (ED) for a hypothetical managed-care (MC) model. Design and Setting: A prevalence-based cost-of-illness approach was used to estimate the direct medical cost for ED treatment. A treatment plan algorithm was developed...

Objective: Pertussis is a highly contagious infection affecting mainly children. Acellular pertussis vaccines were recently introduced in Canada based on evidence of improved safety and efficacy over whole cell vaccines, the current standard of care. The following study reports the economic...

Objective: To determine the cost effectiveness and cost utility of acetylcysteine versus dimethyl sulfoxide (DMSO) for patients with reflex sympathetic dystrophy (RSD), from a societal viewpoint. Design: An economic evaluation was conducted alongside a double-dummy, double-blind, randomised,...

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...

Background: Patients with multiple myeloma and other forms of cancer receiving pamidronate via intravenous (IV) infusion at the Hamilton Regional Cancer Centre in Hamilton, Ontario, Canada face 2 treatment options: they can have their entire treatment completed at the clinic using traditional IV...

Objective: To compare the expected costs of treating patients with asthma with versus without inhaled anti-inflammatory medications, adjusting for other factors that also influence medical care expenditures. Design: Nonlinear exponential regression analyses were used to estimate relationships...