Clinical studies have shown that the combination of an inhaled corticosteroid (ICS) and a long-acting beta2-adrenoceptor agonist (LABA) for patients with asthma is more effective than the use of ICS alone in equivalent or higher doses, as well as the use of other combinations. However, the...

Non-compliance with prescribed regimens poses a significant problem in clinical therapeutics - patients who do not take their medications according to the labelling instructions are at higher risk of treatment failure, and this may have adverse effects on health outcome and healthcare costs....

Objective: Recent research has focused on eradication therapy as the principal treatment of patients with duodenal ulcers and Helicobacter pylori infection. The aim of this study was to analyse the cost effectiveness of triple therapy versus 2 dual therapies. Design: A health economic evaluation...

Objective: To simulate the treatment of postmenopausal women with advanced breast cancer from second-line hormone therapy to death, and to generate estimates of the cost and effectiveness of letrozole and megestrol in order to determine the incremental cost effectiveness of letrozole, expressed...

Background: There is evidence that the earlier a patient reaches hospital and receives thrombolysis, the better the outcome. The GREAT (Grampian Region Early Anistreplase Trial) directly addressed the issue of early thrombolysis by evaluating, in a randomised controlled trial, the efficacy of...

Introduction: Since their invention in the late 1980s and early 1990s, selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs) have become the primary form of pharmaceutical treatment for depression. As the patents of several top-selling SSRIs have expired or are soon to be expired, the SSRI market is...

Objectives: In Australia, no therapeutic agents were subsidised for the treatment of idiopathic pulmonary artery hypertension (iPAH), a rare progressive and severe disease with short life expectancy, until 1 March 2004, when bosentan (a dual endothelin receptor antagonist of high cost) was...

This article reviews the development of economic evaluation of health technologies in the UK and its impact on decision making. After a long period of limited impact from studies mainly carried out as academic exercises, the advent of the National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence...

Pharmacoeconomic data may be obtained within the context of randomised clinical trials (RCTs) and from effectiveness studies in the `real world'. The differences between the 2 types of study design have implications for the types of data that can be obtained and the interpretation of the...