BACKGROUND Clozapine is currently restricted to patients who have failed at least two trials of other antipsychotic medications because of concerns that its use as a first-line agent would lead to greater mortality, mainly through agranulocytosis. AIMS OF THE STUDY We sought to determine the cost-effectiveness of allowing clozapine to be a first-line treatment versus the current policy of res...

We show how to use a bedside approximation of life expectancy in quantitative decision-making. This method, the declining exponential approximation of life expectancy (DEALE), enables the physician to collate various survival data with information on morbidity to determine a quality-adjusted expected survival for a potential management plan. The keystone in the DEALE approach is the approximati...

OBJECTIVES To estimate the cost-effectiveness of switching patients with poorly controlled type 2 diabetes mellitus from human insulin (HI) to biphasic insulin aspart 30 (BIAsp 30) in South Korea. METHODS A published and validated diabetes computer simulation model (the IMS CORE Diabetes Model) was used to evaluate the long-term clinical and economic outcomes associated with switching to BIAs...

Background. Increasing levels of obesity over recent decades have been expected to lead to an epidemic of diabetes and a subsequent reduction in life expectancy, but instead all-cause and cardiovascular-specific mortality rates have decreased steadily in most developed countries and life expectancy has increased. Methods. This paper suggests several factors that may be masking the effects of ob...

BACKGROUND Cancer is one of the most common non-communicable diseases in both sexes and a major cause of disability and death around the world, as well as in Iran. The aim of the present manuscript is to report the results of the Global Burden of Disease study 2010 (the GBD 2010) to compare the results with the other similar findings. The paper also discusses the existing deficiencies of the GB...

Objectives: To estimate the cost-effectiveness of switching patients with poorly controlled type 2 diabetes mellitus from human insulin (HI) to biphasic insulin aspart 30 (BIAsp 30) in South Korea. Methods: A published and validated diabetes computer simulation model (the IMS CORE Diabetes Model) was used to evaluate the long-term clinical and economic outcomes associated with switching to BIAs...

OBJECTIVES To estimate the burden of illness from chronic disease and injury using a population based health survey, which contains both measures of chronic disease and a utility based health related quality of life (HRQOL) measure. DESIGN An adapted Sullivan method was used to calculate cause deleted health adjusted life expectancies for chronic conditions. SETTING Ontario, Canada, 1996/97...

OBJECTIVE To assess the cost-effectiveness of intensive versus conventional therapy for 8 years as applied in the Steno-2 study in patients with type 2 diabetes and microalbuminuria. RESEARCH DESIGN AND METHODS A Markov model was developed to incorporate event and risk data from Steno-2 and account Danish-specific costs to project life expectancy, quality-adjusted life expectancy (QALE), and ...