Presenting results of probabilistic sensitivity analysis: the incremental benefit curve

Abstract

Cost-effectiveness acceptability curves have become a common way of presenting the results of probabilistic sensitivity analysis. However, these curves do not provide information on what the loss of welfare or net benefit (NB) is for cases where a given intervention is not the optimal one. We describe an alternate approach to presenting the results of probabilistic sensitivity analysis called the incremental benefit curve that presents the entire distribution of incremental NB of each intervention for a given WTP value. The incremental benefit curve provides the decision maker information regarding the potential welfare loss with a given intervention for scenarios in which it is not the optimal intervention, and thus would be a useful complement to the acceptability curve.