Objective: Helicobacter pylori (H. pylori) infection is one of the leading causes of gastrointestinal diseases such as dyspepsia, peptic ulcers. Thailand has a 45.9% prevalence of the infection and an increasing rate of resistance to clarithromycin, leading to standard treatments being less successful. Vonoprazan represents a novel drug offering a new treatment regimen. Although vonoprazan has been available in Thailand since 2019, its cost-effectiveness has not been studied previously.Materials and Methods: This study analysed the cost-effectiveness of vonoprazan-based triple therapy compared with PPI-based therapy, in treating clarithromycin resistant H. pylori, by using the markov model from a societal perspective.Results: The total cost of vonoprazan-based triple therapy, levofloxacin-PPI based triple therapy and concomitant-PPI therapy were 784,932.08 baht, 783,863.65 baht and 783,874.55 baht respectively. The quality-adjusted life years (QALYs) of vonoprazan-based triple therapy, levofloxacin-PPI based triple therapy and concomitant-PPI therapy were 25.1118 years, 25.1147 years and 25.1054 years respectively. The cost-effectiveness ratio (CER) of vonoprazanbased triple therapy, levofloxacin-PPI based triple therapy and concomitant-PPI therapy were 31,257.50 baht/ QALYs, 31,211.35 baht/QALYs and 31,223.34 baht per QALYs respectively.Conclusion: Therefore, levofloxacin-PPI based triple therapy was found to be the most cost-effective regimen and the dominant strategy compared with concomitant-PPI or vonoprazan-based triple therapy. It provided higher QALYs and lower treatment costs. Levofloxacin-PPI based triple therapy should be the first choice of an alternative strategy in treating clarithromycin-resistant H. pylori. The results of this study can be used by policymakers to help inform their decisions.
Nowadays, innovation plays a critical role in business operation. Design thinking is a useful tool to create innovations, including health innovation. It can be applied to various fields of pharmacy to satisfy the needs of its patients. This article presents the idea of design thinking and its process which consists of five stages: empathize, define, ideate, prototype, and test. The first two steps, empathizing and defining, are the most important steps that help identify what users really need. Next, ideas are generated, gathered together, and used to develop a prototype. Then, the prototype is tested, improved, and eventually the innovation is developed successfully. In summary, design thinking can be used in pharmacy to create health innovation with the purpose of the users’ fulfillment and long-term benefits to pertinent organizations.
scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.