International Society For Pharmacoeconomics And Outcomes Research Research Articles

WOSCOPS economic model results

Strong evidence of the favourable cost effectiveness of pravastatin prophylaxis to prevent cardiovascular disease in Canadian men has been shown by adapting the economic model of the West of Scotland Coronary Prevention Study (WOSCOPS) to the Canadian setting.*So said Jaime Caro, one of the developers of the WOSCOPS economic model, at the Third Annual Meeting of the International Society for Pharmacoeconomics and Outcomes Research (ISPOR) [Philadelphia, US; May 1998]. He believes that ‘the richness of WOSCOPS data permits reasonable adjustment’,so that the economic model from Scotland can be applied to other countries. Although the model was successfully adapted to the Canadian setting, such application is ‘not straight-forward’,and involves more than cost-adjustment, he said.

New oral CMV prophylactic more cost effective than current standard?

Testing and ‘pre-emptive’ therapy with IV ganciclovir for 2 months in the presence of viral shedding is currently the most favourable of 3 ganciclovir-based IV strategies for the management of cytomegalovirus disease in renal transplant recipients. This is the finding of an economic study that used a model to ascertain the likely value of a new oral drug for such patients before clinical data are available.*At the Third Annual Meeting of the International Society for Pharmacoeconomics and Outcomes Research (ISPOR) [Philadelphia, US; May 1998], Dr Josephine Mauskopf from the Research Triangle Institute, North Carolina, US, used this model to show that if a new oral drug with a similar price and efficacy to IV ganciclovir was available, prophylaxis could be more cost effective than either the pre-emptive or the ‘wait-and-treat’ options.