Non-UK purchasers will have to pay a small fee for post and packing. For European countries the cost is £2 per monograph and for the rest of the world £3 per monograph.You can order HTA monographs from our Despatch Agents:-fax (with credit card or official purchase order) -post (with credit card or official purchase order or cheque) -phone during office hours (credit card only).Additionally the HTA website allows you either to pay securely by credit card or to print out your order and then post or fax it. NHS libraries can subscribe free of charge. Public libraries can subscribe at a very reduced cost of £100 for each volume (normally comprising 30-40 titles). The commercial subscription rate is £300 per volume. Please see our website for details. Subscriptions can only be purchased for the current or forthcoming volume. Contact details are as follows: Payment methods Paying by chequeIf you pay by cheque, the cheque must be in pounds sterling, made payable to Direct Mail Works Ltd and drawn on a bank with a UK address. Paying by credit cardThe following cards are accepted by phone, fax, post or via the website ordering pages: Delta, Eurocard, Mastercard, Solo, Switch and Visa. We advise against sending credit card details in a plain email. Paying by official purchase orderYou can post or fax these, but they must be from public bodies (i.e. NHS or universities) within the UK. We cannot at present accept purchase orders from commercial companies or from outside the UK. How do I get a copy of HTA on CD?Please use the form on the HTA website (www.hta.ac.uk/htacd.htm). Or contact Direct Mail Works (see contact details above) by email, post, fax or phone. HTA on CD is currently free of charge worldwide.The website also provides information about the HTA Programme and lists the membership of the various committees. HTA NIHR Health Technology Assessment ProgrammeT he Health Technology Assessment (HTA) Programme, now part of the National Institute for Health Research (NIHR), was set up in 1993. It produces high-quality research information on the costs, effectiveness and broader impact of health technologies for those who use, manage and provide care in the NHS. 'Health technologies' are broadly defined to include all interventions used to promote health, prevent and treat disease, and improve rehabilitation and long-term care, rather than settings of care. The research findings from the HTA Programme directly influence decision-making bodies such as the National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence (NICE) and the National Screening Committee (NSC). HTA findings also help to improve the quality of clinical practice in the NHS indirectly in that they form a key component of the 'National Knowledge Service'. The HTA Programme is needs-led in that it fills gaps in the evidence needed by the NHS. There are three routes to the start of projects. First is the commissioned route. Suggestions for research are actively sought from people working in the NHS, the public and consumer groups and professional bodies such as r...

In this report we describe the outcome of a consensus meeting that occurred at the National Institutes of Health in Bethesda, Maryland, March 12 through 14, 2005. The meeting brought together 39 specialists from multiple clinical and research disciplines including developmental pediatrics, neurology, neurosurgery, orthopedic surgery, physical therapy, occupational therapy, physical medicine and rehabilitation, neurophysiology, muscle physiology, motor control, and biomechanics. The purpose of the meeting was to establish terminology and definitions for 4 aspects of motor disorders that occur in children: weakness, reduced selective motor control, ataxia, and deficits of praxis. The purpose of the definitions is to assist communication between clinicians, select homogeneous groups of children for clinical research trials, facilitate the development of rating scales to assess improvement or deterioration with time, and eventually to better match individual children with specific therapies. "Weakness" is defined as the inability to generate normal voluntary force in a muscle or normal voluntary torque about a joint. "Reduced selective motor control" is defined as the impaired ability to isolate the activation of muscles in a selected pattern in response to demands of a voluntary posture or movement. "Ataxia" is defined as an inability to generate a normal or expected voluntary movement trajectory that cannot be attributed to weakness or involuntary muscle activity about the affected joints. "Apraxia" is defined as an impairment in the ability to accomplish previously learned and performed complex motor actions that is not explained by ataxia, reduced selective motor control, weakness, or involuntary motor activity. "Developmental dyspraxia" is defined as a failure to have ever acquired the ability to perform age-appropriate complex motor actions that is not explained by the presence of inadequate demonstration or practice, ataxia, reduced selective motor control, weakness, or involuntary motor activity.

Health-related quality of life is an important issue in the treatment of breast cancer and health-state utility values are essential for cost-utility analysis. A literature review was conducted to identify published values for common health states for breast cancer. In total, 13 databases were searched and 49 articles were identified providing 476 unique utility values. Where possible mean utility estimates were pooled using ordinary least squares with utilities clustered within study group and weighted by both number of respondents and inverse of the variance of each utility. Regressions included controls for disease state, utility assessment method and other features of study design. Utility values found in the review were summarized for six categories: screening-related states; preventative states; adverse events in breast cancer and its treatment; nonspecific breast cancer; metastatic breast cancer states; and early breast cancer states. The large number of values identified for metastatic breast cancer and early breast cancer states enabled data to be synthesized by meta-regression. Utilities were found to vary significantly between valuation methods and depending on who conducted the valuation. For metastatic breast cancer, values significantly varied by severity of condition, treatment and side-effects. Despite the numerous studies it is not feasible to generate a definitive list of health-state utility values that can be used in future economic evaluations owing to the complexity of the health states involved and the variety of methods used to obtain values. Future research into quality of life in breast cancer should make greater use of validated generic preference-based measures for which public preferences exist.

No abstract

Non-UK purchasers will have to pay a small fee for post and packing. For European countries the cost is £2 per monograph and for the rest of the world £3 per monograph.You can order HTA monographs from our Despatch Agents:-fax (with credit card or official purchase order) -post (with credit card or official purchase order or cheque) -phone during office hours (credit card only).Additionally the HTA website allows you either to pay securely by credit card or to print out your order and then post or fax it. NHS libraries can subscribe free of charge. Public libraries can subscribe at a very reduced cost of £100 for each volume (normally comprising 30-40 titles). The commercial subscription rate is £300 per volume. Please see our website for details. Subscriptions can only be purchased for the current or forthcoming volume. Contact details are as follows: Payment methods Paying by chequeIf you pay by cheque, the cheque must be in pounds sterling, made payable to Direct Mail Works Ltd and drawn on a bank with a UK address. Paying by credit cardThe following cards are accepted by phone, fax, post or via the website ordering pages: Delta, Eurocard, Mastercard, Solo, Switch and Visa. We advise against sending credit card details in a plain email. Paying by official purchase orderYou can post or fax these, but they must be from public bodies (i.e. NHS or universities) within the UK. We cannot at present accept purchase orders from commercial companies or from outside the UK. How do I get a copy of HTA on CD?Please use the form on the HTA website (www.hta.ac.uk/htacd.htm). Or contact Direct Mail Works (see contact details above) by email, post, fax or phone. HTA on CD is currently free of charge worldwide.The website also provides information about the HTA Programme and lists the membership of the various committees. HTA NIHR Health Technology Assessment ProgrammeT he Health Technology Assessment (HTA) Programme, now part of the National Institute for Health Research (NIHR), was set up in 1993. It produces high-quality research information on the costs, effectiveness and broader impact of health technologies for those who use, manage and provide care in the NHS. 'Health technologies' are broadly defined to include all interventions used to promote health, prevent and treat disease, and improve rehabilitation and long-term care, rather than settings of care. The research findings from the HTA Programme directly influence decision-making bodies such as the National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence (NICE) and the National Screening Committee (NSC). HTA findings also help to improve the quality of clinical practice in the NHS indirectly in that they form a key component of the 'National Knowledge Service'. The HTA Programme is needs-led in that it fills gaps in the evidence needed by the NHS. There are three routes to the start of projects. First is the commissioned route. Suggestions for research are actively sought from people working in the NHS, the public and consumer groups and professional bodies such as r...