The utility break-even point is the value of the utility of living with diagnosed and treated prostate cancer, u, for which the expected quality of life lost due to earlier detection and treatment of cancer is equal to the expected quality-adjusted life expectancy gained.
Markov decision analysis was used to calculate expected quality-adjusted life years (QALY) with intervention.
Using the Markov model we calculated for each patient their expected quality-adjusted survival (based on their likelihood of surviving each cycle and their expected health state utility value) and their expected costs.
Six out of seven of the models produced incremental cost-effectiveness ratios (ICERs) for screening, expressed in terms of costs of either expected life years (LYs) or expected quality-adjusted life years (QALYs) gained.
From this, the expected quality-adjusted survival (QAS) time can be calculated, which takes into account each of the patient's various health states and the survival duration (in years) spent in each state.
We assigned men to one of the four strategies, and recorded relevant events during their lifetime to estimate the expected costs and quality adjusted life years (QALYs).
We created an Excel-based (Microsoft Corp., Redmond, Washington) Markov model to project health-related outcomes and to estimate the expected costs and quality adjusted life-years (QALYs) associated with the three treatment strategies studied in SPRINT-2.
A general method to estimate benefits of health care interventions is to predict the expected gain in quality adjusted life years (QALYs) (Drummond et al, 1997), which take into account both quantity and quality of life generated by health care interventions.
The model calculates the expected lifetime medical costs and quality adjusted life years (QALYs) of hypothetical cohorts of identical patients receiving certain treatments.
Health gain was measured in expected lives saved in one year and in quality adjusted life years.
