A Tool to Improve Quality of Reporting Published Economic Analyses

Gerard, Karen; Seymour, J; Smoker, Irenie

doi:10.1017/s0266462300016196

Cited by 30 publications

(32 citation statements)

References 7 publications

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“…The reporting quality was poor for certain items, but was comparable to the quality found by systematic reviews of economic evaluations in conventional medicine [6,83,84]. Although the BMJ checklist was mostly objective (ie, required the least amount of judgment compared to the other checklists available), a fair amount of interpretation was still required for many items.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 83%

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Is complementary and alternative medicine (CAM) cost-effective? a systematic review

Herman

Craig

Caspi

2005

BMC Complement Altern Med

185

121

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BackgroundOut-of-pocket expenditures of over $34 billion per year in the US are an apparent testament to a widely held belief that complementary and alternative medicine (CAM) therapies have benefits that outweigh their costs. However, regardless of public opinion, there is often little more than anecdotal evidence on the health and economic implications of CAM therapies. The objectives of this study are to present an overview of economic evaluation and to expand upon a previous review to examine the current scope and quality of CAM economic evaluations.MethodsThe data sources used were Medline, AMED, Alt-HealthWatch, and the Complementary and Alternative Medicine Citation Index; January 1999 to October 2004. Papers that reported original data on specific CAM therapies from any form of standard economic analysis were included. Full economic evaluations were subjected to two types of quality review. The first was a 35-item checklist for reporting quality, and the second was a set of four criteria for study quality (randomization, prospective collection of economic data, comparison to usual care, and no blinding).ResultsA total of 56 economic evaluations (39 full evaluations) of CAM were found covering a range of therapies applied to a variety of conditions. The reporting quality of the full evaluations was poor for certain items, but was comparable to the quality found by systematic reviews of economic evaluations in conventional medicine. Regarding study quality, 14 (36%) studies were found to meet all four criteria. These exemplary studies indicate CAM therapies that may be considered cost-effective compared to usual care for various conditions: acupuncture for migraine, manual therapy for neck pain, spa therapy for Parkinson's, self-administered stress management for cancer patients undergoing chemotherapy, pre- and post-operative oral nutritional supplementation for lower gastrointestinal tract surgery, biofeedback for patients with "functional" disorders (eg, irritable bowel syndrome), and guided imagery, relaxation therapy, and potassium-rich diet for cardiac patients.ConclusionWhereas the number and quality of economic evaluations of CAM have increased in recent years and more CAM therapies have been shown to be of good value, the majority of CAM therapies still remain to be evaluated.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 83%

“…For comparison, Table 4 also contains comparable results from systematic reviews in conventional medicine [6,83,84]. …”

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Is complementary and alternative medicine (CAM) cost-effective? a systematic review

Herman

Craig

Caspi

2005

BMC Complement Altern Med

185

121

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“…The incorporation of guidelines within the peer-review process of the medical literature would contribute to a rise in reporting standards, specially in specific medical journals, were greater methodological deficiencies have been found [116,117]. As an example, the British Medical Journal checklist for the submission of economic assessment studies has proved to be a feasible tool to assess the quality of economic assessment studies, and has been suggested as a guideline for other journals [118].…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Twenty years of health care economic analysis in Spain: are we doing well?

García-Altés

2001

Health Economics

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The rising demand for health care, together with the scarce available resources, has increased the use of economic analysis as a support tool for policy making. The objective of this study was to make a description of economic evaluation studies carried out in Spain and published during the last 20 years, and to assess their quality. A systematic bibliographic search was made in the main biomedical databases. Full economic evaluation studies made in Spain comparing two or more health care alternatives were included. Statistical analyses included a descriptive analysis, the assessment of the association between pairs of variables, and a homogeneity analysis. A total of 87 studies were included in the review. According to the methodology, the technique most frequently used was cost-effectiveness analysis. In most cases, some weaknesses could be pointed out: absence of any objective directly linked to the decision-making process, a non-explicit perspective, no inclusion of indirect costs, or clinical and economical data not concurrently collected. A continuing challenge for health care economic analysis in Spain is to follow methodological guidelines and reporting conventions, to improve the dissemination of research, as well as to use more sophisticated economic analysis techniques, and to publish in international journals.

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“…[12] Since the tool does not allow for quantifying the performance of the systematic reviews against its domain, we developed a scoring scale matching the fourth-point response choices of the AMSTAR, based on previously published approaches. [5, 13] The four-point response choices, Yes, No, Can't answer , assign the scores 1, 0, 0. For dimensions that were not applicable, the maximum score was reduced by 1 for comparability purposes across studies.…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

A review of systematic reviews of the cost-effectiveness of hormone therapy, chemotherapy, and targeted therapy for breast cancer

Diaby

Tawk

Sanogo

et al. 2015

Breast Cancer Res Treat

122

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Breast cancer is a global health concern. In fact, breast cancer is the primary cause of death among women worldwide and constitutes the most expensive malignancy to treat. As health care resources are finite, decisions regarding the adoption and coverage of breast cancer treatments are increasingly being based on “value for money,” i.e., cost-effectiveness. As the evidence about the cost-effectiveness of breast cancer treatments is abundant, therefore difficult to navigate, systematic reviews of published systematic reviews offer the advantage of bringing together the results of separate systematic reviews in a single report. As a consequence, this paper presents an overview of systematic reviews of the cost-effectiveness of hormone therapy, chemotherapy, and targeted therapy for breast cancer to inform policy and reimbursement decision-making. A systematic review was conducted of published systematic reviews documenting cost-effectiveness analyses of breast cancer treatments from 2000 to 2014. Systematic reviews identified through a literature search of health and economic databases were independently assessed against inclusion and exclusion criteria. Systematic reviews of original evaluations were included only if they targeted breast cancer patients and specific breast cancer treatments (hormone therapy, chemotherapy, and targeted therapy only), documented incremental cost-effectiveness ratios, and were reported in the English language. The search strategy used a combination of these key words: “breast cancer,” “systematic review/meta-analysis,” and “cost-effectiveness/economics.” Data were extracted using predefined extraction forms and qualitatively appraised using the assessment of multiple systematic reviews (AMSTAR) tool. The literature search resulted in 511 bibliographic records, of which ten met our inclusion criteria. Five reviews were conducted in the early-stage breast cancer setting and five reviews in the metastatic setting. In early-stage breast cancer, evidence about trastuzumab value differed by age. Trastuzumab was cost-effective only in women with HER2-positive breast cancer younger than 65 years and over a life-time horizon. The cost-effectiveness of trastuzumab in HER2-positive metastatic breast cancer yielded conflicting results. The same conclusions were reached in comparisons between vinorelbine and taxanes. In both early stage and advanced/metastatic breast cancer, newer aromatase inhibitors (AIs) have proved cost-effective compared to older treatments. This overview of systematic reviews shows that there is heterogeneity in the evidence concerning the cost-effectiveness of hormone therapy, chemotherapy, and targeted therapy for breast cancer. The cost-effectiveness of these treatments depends not only on the comparators but the context, i.e., adjuvant or metastatic setting, subtype of patient population, and perspective adopted. Decisions involving the cost-effectiveness of breast cancer treatments could be made easier and more transparent by better harmonizing the reporting of econo...

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A Tool to Improve Quality of Reporting Published Economic Analyses

Cited by 30 publications

References 7 publications

Is complementary and alternative medicine (CAM) cost-effective? a systematic review

Is complementary and alternative medicine (CAM) cost-effective? a systematic review

Twenty years of health care economic analysis in Spain: are we doing well?

A review of systematic reviews of the cost-effectiveness of hormone therapy, chemotherapy, and targeted therapy for breast cancer

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