Review of the national essential medicine lists shows that many of the drug therapies they studied were already on the list but again without cost-effectiveness evidences for their selection.
At the same time, the Iranian health system is being criticized for inefficient resource allocation, providing services without cost-effectiveness considerations, failing to regulate the private sector and over-utilization of new technologies [ 9- 12].
Firstly, donations may focus the public health community on interventions for which companies have cures – albeit donated ones – without sufficient consideration of cost effectiveness, opportunity cost or prioritisation.
No-rinse disposable wash gloves are increasingly implemented in health care to replace traditional soap and water bed baths without proper evaluation of (cost) effectiveness.
More uniquely, we review economic aspects of lymphoma treatments, including the cost of standard chemotherapy regimens with or without rituximab, cost effectiveness of rituximab in both induction and maintenance treatment, and lymphoma's impacts on patient's productivity and their caregivers.
What's needed from utilities are security of supply, operation in the public interest, long-term planning and cost effectiveness without profiteering.
Lung cancer researchers thus find themselves in a position not unfamiliar to medical researchers more generally, namely, one of being unable to prove cost effectiveness without having first conducted a trial, whilst being unable to secure financial support for a trial without having first demonstrated cost effectiveness.
We describe a multi-centre randomized controlled trial to test whether these patients can be followed up by their general practitioner (GP) without altering quality of life, cost effectiveness and/or the incidence of serious clinical events.
Incorporating planned treatment breaks has the potential to improve QoL and cost effectiveness, hopefully without significant detriment on OS, as has been demonstrated in other cancer types with other treatments.
Thirdly, we did a cost effectiveness analysis without patients over 55 years of age to see if these patients use the claim of low back pain as an alternative to retirement.
Consumers are already spending a large amount of their disposable income on CAM without formal proof of effectiveness or cost effectiveness.
