Although risk-factor modification has gained wide acceptance as an effective approach to the prevention of coronary heart disease (CHD), health planners, physicians and patients confront considerable uncertainty over the most appropriate and efficient preventive strategies. Some preventive...

Objective: Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) is a fatal, degenerative neuromuscular disease characterised by a progressive loss of voluntary motor activity. Recombinant human insulin-like growth factor I (rhIGF-I) has been shown to be useful in treating ALS. The purpose of this study was to...

Objective: To undertake a 1-year prospective economic evaluation of ciprofloxacin compared with usual antibacterial care (any antibacterial other than a quinolone) for the treatment of acute exacerbations of chronic bronchitis (AECB) in adults presenting with a type I or type II AECB. Design:...

This century has seen a phenomenal growth in the development, understanding and use of pharmaceuticals. Additionally, this period has seen the balance of the treatment needs of patients shift dramatically from infectious to cardiovascular and cancer diseases, and from infancy and middle-age to...

Background: Current hypertension guidelines differ in their recommendations for first-line antihypertensive therapy. Objective: To evaluate the cost effectiveness of ACE inhibitor therapy as antihypertensive first-line therapy as compared with conventional antihypertensive therapy with...

The availability of new atypical antipsychotics, such as risperidone, that have higher acquisition costs than conventional treatments has prompted pharmacoeconomic evaluation of their costs and benefits. Risperidone is reported to have superior efficacy to haloperidol and similar efficacy to...

The need to demonstrate the cost effectiveness of healthcare interventions has led to a rapid increase in the use of economic tools within pharmaceutical evaluations. Pharmacoeconomics is employed at many stages of the evaluation process, helping to predict which products are likely to be...

A decision-analytical simulation model was constructed to perform a pharmacoeconomic analysis of the following 3 treatment strategies for previously untreated cytomegalovirus (CMV) retinitis in patients with AIDS: (i) intravenous foscarnet (IVF) for induction and maintenance therapy; (ii)...

Objective: The aim of this study was to evaluate the cost effectiveness of multi-therapy treatment strategies in the prevention of vertebral fractures in postmenopausal women with osteoporosis. Design: A retrospective, incremental cost-effectiveness analysis was conducted from a societal...

Dramatic progress has recently been made in defining the pathogenesis and treatment of HIV infection. For the first time in the history of the AIDS epidemic, clinicians have at their disposal an understanding of the replication kinetics of HIV, reliable assays to measure viral load, an...