Increasingly more reviews of economic evaluation studies aim to analyze the application of methodological principles, and offer summaries of papers classified by either diseases or health technologies. These reviews are useful for finding literature trends, aims of studies and possible deficiencies in the implementation of methods of specific health interventions. As no significant methodological improvement was clearly detected in the two periods analyzed, it would be convenient to pay more attention to the methodological aspects of the reviews.

Economic evaluation of genetic technologies matters but the number of published studies is still rather low as to be widely used for most of the decisions in different jurisdictions across the EU. Further, the decision bodies across EU27 are fragmented and the responsibilities are located at different levels of the decision process for what it is difficult to find out whether a given decision on genetic tests was somehow supported by the economic evaluation results.

ural history model to project clinical and/or economic outcomes. METHODS: The subset of stage I-III colon cancer patients who will experience recurrence face a constant rate rd of transition from undetectable to theoretically detectable recurrence during a given interval. These same patients face a constant rate ru of transition from resectable (i.e. potentially curable) to unresectable metastatic disease with a minimum interval xdu between the point of detectability and the point of unresectability. A third constant rate parameter rs will determine when, on average, individuals develop recurrence-related symptoms prompting them to seek medical advice before the next scheduled evaluation. The mean point of symptom development will follow the point at which a recurrence becomes detectable by a span of at least xds. However, a normally distributed error term Eds will mean that, for a given simulated patient, symptoms may initiate before or after the patient reaches unresectability. RESULTS: A best-fitting set of these natural history parameters can be selected by calibrating to targets of time-to-detection of recurrence, time-to-death, and proportion of patients who present with recurrence-related symptoms prior to scheduled assessments. CONCLUSIONS: The data sources for these targets can be existing experimental, observational, or registry data where follow-up schedule and compliance levels are known.