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Review article: economic issues in Crohn’s disease — assessing the effects of new treatments on health‐related quality of life
Author(s) -
Feagan B.G.
Publication year - 1999
Publication title -
alimentary pharmacology and therapeutics
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 3.308
H-Index - 177
eISSN - 1365-2036
pISSN - 0269-2813
DOI - 10.1046/j.1365-2036.1999.00028.x
Subject(s) - medicine , crohn's disease , quality of life (healthcare) , quality adjusted life year , disease , intensive care medicine , quality (philosophy) , cost–benefit analysis , risk analysis (engineering) , crohn disease , health economics , cost effectiveness , actuarial science , public health , pathology , economics , nursing , ecology , philosophy , epistemology , biology
The advent of highly effective yet costly new treatments for Crohn’s disease will force clinicians, patients, and society to make important choices regarding the allocation of resources. Pharmacoeconomic analyses can be useful in deciding whether new technologies are of good value in comparison to established treatment regimens. In Crohn’s disease conventional cost‐effectiveness analyses are of limited use because surgery, death, and disease‐related complications occur relatively infrequently. Alternatively, cost‐utility models relate the incremental cost of new treatments to improvements in health‐related quality of life. These analyses require the collection of valid cost and utility inputs that have only recently become available. Ultimately, cost‐utility models should allow decision makers to make sensible choices for patients and society. This article describes the techniques of pharmacoeconomic analysis and reviews existing data on the measurement of costs and quality‐of‐life outcomes in Crohn’s disease.