89 research outputs found

    Cost effectiveness analysis of including boys in a human papillomavirus vaccination programme in the United States

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    Objective To assess the cost effectiveness of including preadolescent boys in a routine human papillomavirus (HPV) vaccination programme for preadolescent girls

    Cost-Effectiveness of Alternative Blood-Screening Strategies for West Nile Virus in the United States

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    BACKGROUND: West Nile virus (WNV) is endemic in the US, varying seasonally and by geographic region. WNV can be transmitted by blood transfusion, and mandatory screening of blood for WNV was recently introduced throughout the US. Guidelines for selecting cost-effective strategies for screening blood for WNV do not exist. METHODS AND FINDINGS: We conducted a cost-effectiveness analysis for screening blood for WNV using a computer-based mathematical model, and using data from prospective studies, retrospective studies, and published literature. For three geographic areas with varying WNV-transmission intensity and length of transmission season, the model was used to estimate lifetime costs, quality-adjusted life expectancy, and incremental cost-effectiveness ratios associated with alternative screening strategies in a target population of blood-transfusion recipients. We compared the status quo (baseline screening using a donor questionnaire) to several strategies which differed by nucleic acid testing of either pooled or individual samples, universal versus targeted screening of donations designated for immunocompromised patients, and seasonal versus year-long screening. In low-transmission areas with short WNV seasons, screening by questionnaire alone was the most cost-effective strategy. In areas with high levels of WNV transmission, seasonal screening of individual samples and restricting screening to blood donations designated for immunocompromised recipients was the most cost-effective strategy. Seasonal screening of the entire recipient pool added minimal clinical benefit, with incremental cost-effectiveness ratios exceeding US$1.7 million per quality-adjusted life-year gained. Year-round screening offered no additional benefit compared to seasonal screening in any of the transmission settings. CONCLUSIONS: In areas with high levels of WNV transmission, seasonal screening of individual samples and restricting screening to blood donations designated for immunocompromised recipients is cost saving. In areas with low levels of infection, a status-quo strategy using a standard questionnaire is cost-effective

    The Cost-Effectiveness of Directly Observed Highly-Active Antiretroviral Therapy in the Third Trimester in HIV-Infected Pregnant Women

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    Background: In HIV-infected pregnant women, viral suppression prevents mother-to-child HIV transmission. Directly observed highly-active antiretroviral therapy (HAART) enhances virological suppression, and could prevent transmission. Our objective was to project the effectiveness and cost-effectiveness of directly observed administration of antiretroviral drugs in pregnancy. Methods and Findings: A mathematical model was created to simulate cohorts of one million asymptomatic HIV-infected pregnant women on HAART, with women randomly assigned self-administered or directly observed antiretroviral therapy (DOT), or no HAART, in a series of Monte Carlo simulations. Our primary outcome was the quality-adjusted life expectancy in years (QALY) of infants born to HIV-infected women, with the rates of Caesarean section and HIV-transmission after DOT use as intermediate outcomes. Both self-administered HAART and DOT were associated with decreased costs and increased life-expectancy relative to no HAART. The use of DOT was associated with a relative risk of HIV transmission of 0.39 relative to conventional HAART; was highly cost-effective in the cohort as a whole (cost-utility ratio $14,233 per QALY); and was cost-saving in women whose viral loads on self-administered HAART would have exceeded 1000 copies/ml. Results were stable in wide-ranging sensitivity analyses, with directly observed therapy cost-saving or highly cost-effective in almost all cases. Conclusions: Based on the best available data, programs that optimize adherence to HAART through direct observation in pregnancy have the potential to diminish mother-to-child HIV transmission in a highly cost-effective manner. Targeted use of DOT in pregnant women with high viral loads, who could otherwise receive self-administered HAART would be a cost-saving intervention. These projections should be tested with randomized clinical trials

    Potential impact of reactive vaccination in controlling cholera outbreaks: An exploratory analysis using a Zimbabwean experience

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    Background. To contain ongoing cholera outbreaks, the World Health Organization has suggested that reactive vaccination should be considered in addition to its previous control measures. Objectives. To explore the potential impact of a hypothetical reactive oral cholera vaccination using the example of the recent large-scale cholera outbreak in Zimbabwe. Methods. This was a retrospective cost-effectiveness analysis calculating the health and economic burden of the cholera outbreak in Zimbabwe with and without reactive vaccination. The primary outcome measure was incremental cost per disability-adjusted life year (DALY) averted. Results. Under the base-case assumptions (assuming 50% coverage among individuals aged ≥2 years), reactive vaccination could have averted 1 320 deaths and 23 650 DALYs. Considering herd immunity, the corresponding values would have been 2 920 deaths and 52 360 DALYs averted. The total vaccination costs would have been ~74millionand 74 million and ~21 million, respectively, with per-dose vaccine price of US5and5 and 1. The incremental costs per DALY averted of reactive vaccination were 2770and2 770 and 370, respectively, for vaccine price set at 5and5 and 1. Assuming herd immunity, the corresponding cost was 980withvaccinepriceof980 with vaccine price of 5, and the programme was cost-saving with a vaccine price of $1. Results were most sensitive to case-fatality rate, per-dose vaccine price, and the size of the outbreak. Conclusions. Reactive vaccination has the potential to be a cost-effective measure to contain cholera outbreaks in countries at high risk. However, the feasibility of implementation should be further evaluated, and caution is warranted in extrapolating the findings to different settings in the absence of other in-depth studies

    Clinical consequences and cost of limiting use of vancomycin for perioperative prophylaxis: Example of coronary artery bypass surgery. Emerg Infect Dis

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    Routine use of vancomycin for perioperative prophylaxis is discouraged, principally to minimize microbial resistance to it. However, outcomes and costs of this recommendation have not been assessed. We used decisionanalytic models to compare clinical results and cost-effectiveness of no prophylaxis, cefazolin, and vancomycin, in coronary artery bypass graft surgery. In the base case, vancomycin resulted in 7% fewer surgical site infections and 1% lower all-cause mortality and saved $117 per procedure, compared with cefazolin. Cefazolin, in turn, resulted in substantially fewer infections and deaths and lower costs than no prophylaxis. We conclude that perioperative antibiotic prophylaxis with vancomycin is usually more effective and less expensive than cefazolin. Data on vancomycin's impact on resistance are needed to quantify the trade-off between individual patients' improved clinical outcomes and lower costs and the future longterm consequences to society. The emergence of vancomycin-resistant enterococci has opened a new era of hardly treatable bacterial infections, and there is now evidence that more virulent common pathogens such as Staphylococcus aureus can also develop resistance to vancomycin (1,2). The use of vancomycin is hypothesized to promote the development or transmission of this resistance (3,4). Restrictive guidelines have therefore been disseminated for the use of vancomycin or teicoplanin, another glycopeptide agent (5). These guidelines include a recommendation against the routine use of vancomycin as perioperative antibiotic prophylaxis for surgical site infections. However, vancomycin is preferred for preventing infections caused by methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) or methicillin-resistant coagulase-negative staphylococci. This is the rationale for recommending vancomycin prophylaxis when the risk for infection from methicillinresistant pathogens is high (6-11), although no guideline has made a clear statement on when to use this alternative. Since antibiotics are commonly used for prophylaxis, liberal interpretation of the prophylaxis guidelines will clearly jeopardize efforts to limit the use of vancomycin. Vancomycin is also more expensive to purchase and administer than cephalosporins. To inform both the clinical and public policy debate with respect to the optimal prophylaxis regimen, we conducted a cost-effectiveness analysis to compare the short-and longterm consequences of using vancomycin and cefazolin as first-line perioperative prophylaxis. We focused on patients who underwent coronary artery bypass graft surgery (CABG) because this is a large, relatively homogeneous population with substantial risk for serious surgical site infection (12,13). Methods Cost-Effectiveness Analysis We developed a decision-analytic model We also conducted a reference case analysis, as recommended by the Panel on Cost-Effectiveness in Health and Medicine (14), which assumed a societal perspective and relied on a longer time horizon. The reference case was a 65-year-old man undergoing CABG surgery for stable multivessel coronary heart disease. A state-transition model incorporated the lifetime probability of death, myocardial infarction, angina, or asymptomatic coronary artery disease following CABG surgery (15,16) to estimate life expectancy, qualityadjusted life expectancy, and total lifetime costs. Future costs and benefits were discounted at an annual rate of 3%

    Comparative effectiveness of personalized lifestyle management strategies for cardiovascular disease risk reduction

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    Background-Evidence shows that healthy diet, exercise, smoking interventions, and stress reduction reduce cardiovascular disease risk. We aimed to compare the effectiveness of these lifestyle interventions for individual risk profiles and determine their rank order in reducing 10-year cardiovascular disease risk. Methods and Results-We computed risks using the American College of Cardiology/American Heart Association Pooled Cohort Equations for a variety of individual profiles. Using published literature on risk factor reductions through diverse lifestyle interventions-group therapy for stopping smoking, Mediterranean diet, aerobic exercise (walking), and yoga-we calculated the risk reduction through each of these interventions to determine the strategy associated with the maximum benefit for each profile. Sensitivity analyses were conducted to test the robustness of the results. In the base-case analysis, yoga was associated with the largest 10-year cardiovascular disease risk reductions (maximum absolute reduction 16.7% for the highest-risk individuals). Walking generally ranked second (max 11.4%), followed by Mediterranean diet (max 9.2%), and group therapy for smoking (max 1.6%). If the individual was a current smoker and successfully quit smoking (ie, achieved complete smoking cessation), then stopping smoking yielded the largest reduction. Probabilistic and 1-way sensitivity analysis confirmed the demonstrated trend. Conclusions-This study reports the comparative effectiveness of several forms of lifestyle modifications and found smoking cessation and yoga to be the most effective forms of cardiovascular disease prevention. Future research should focus on patient adherence to personalized therapies, cost-effectiveness of these strategies, and the potential for enhanced benefit when interventions are performed simultaneously rather than as single measures
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