As expected, total health-care costs were correlated with comorbid medical conditions, such as HIV and sequelae of haemophilia such as arthropathy. Health policy should consider risk adjustment for the presence of complications such as arthropathy and HIV infection in the financing of haemophilia treatment to promote more equitable delivery of these services.

The intensive, home-delivered, program of care for the well old elderly did not have an impact on the outcomes measured.

Summary. To describe the study design, procedures and baseline characteristics of the Haemophilia Utilization Group Study -Part Va (HUGS Va), a US multi-center observational study evaluating the cost of care and burden of illness in persons with factor VIII deficiency. Patients with factor VIII level £30%, age 2-64 years, receiving treatment at one of six federally supported haemophilia treatment centres (HTCs) were enrolled in the study. Participants completed an initial interview including questions on socio-demographical characteristics, health insurance status, co-morbidities, access to care, haemophilia treatment regimen, factor utilization, self-reported joint pain and motion limitation and health-related quality of life. A periodic follow-up survey collected data regarding time lost from usual activities, disability days, health care utilization and outcomes of care. HTC clinicians documented participants' baseline clinical characteristics and pharmacy dispensing records for 2 years.Between July 2005 and July 2007, 329 participants were enrolled. Average age was 9.7 years for children and 33.5 years for adults; two-thirds had severe haemophilia. The distributions of age, marital status, education level and barriers to haemophilia care were relatively consistent across haemophilic severity categories. Differences were found in participants' employment status, insurance status and income. Overall, children with haemophilia had quality of life scores comparable to healthy counterparts. Adults had significantly lower physical functioning than the general US population. As one of the largest economic studies of haemophilia care, HUGS Va will provide detailed information regarding the burden of illness and health care utilization in the US haemophilia A population.

A limitation of bypassing agent therapy for haemophilia patients with inhibitors is the absence of a laboratory assay, which predicts the clinical response to treatment. Recent investigations have demonstrated the potential for thromboelastography to assess the effects of bypassing agent therapy in this patient population. While tissue factor activation has been used in several prior studies, a recent multicentre study failed to demonstrate an expected concentration-response effect of rFVIIa and called into question the tissue factor activation methods that have been employed. A comparison of kaolin to two concentrations of tissue factor as the activation method for thromboelastography was investigated in patients with haemophilia. We performed kaolin and tissue factor activated thromboelastography on blood from inhibitor and non-inhibitor patients with and without addition of rFVIIa and rFVIII. The results demonstrate that kaolin leads to a longer R, K and angle than the higher dilution of tissue factor (1:17 000) at baseline (no factor) and after addition of rFVIIa for both the inhibitor and non-inhibitor patients. Kaolin led to a longer R and K in comparison to a low dilution of tissue factor (1:42 000) following the addition of rFVIIa in the inhibitor patients. The longer R and K allows for better discrimination of the effects of rFVIIa thus making kaolin the most sensitive activation method in this setting. Thus kaolin activated thromboelastography should be considered an effective, perhaps the most effective, activator when utilizing thromboelastography to assess the effects of rFVIIa in haemophilia patients with inhibitors.