Health economic evaluation - Essay Example

The study is given in two sections, appendix A and appendix. Appendix A calculates the cost for a period of 13 weeks and appendix B, the costs incurred for one year. Only patients with baseline anaemia below 11 hg/dl were included in the study. The patients were administered darbepoetin alfa through one arm and r-HuEPO through the other. The dosage of the drugs was as follows. R-HuEPO was administered three times per week and darbepoetin alfa was administered once a week. When calculated for a whole week, the total cost of the drugs remained the same because even though darbepoetin alfa was costlier, its lower dosage helped it to equate its costs with the higher dosage r-HuEPO.

The alternative treatment shown is RBC transfusion, though the paper itself suggests that such transfusions are only a temporary measure. The treatment of anaemia using the above two drugs have a long range effect in control of anaemia and hence it can be said that an effective alternative treatment in not included in the study. The above two drugs belong to the class of erythropoiesis-stimulating agents (ESAs), and at present no other alternative treatments apart from this are currently available in allopathy for treating chemotherapy induced anaemia.

“The search goes on for orally active antianemic therapies, and several strategies are being investigated, although none is imminently available.” (Macdougall). Other alternatives like nutritional supplements like iron are not included in the study probably due to the fact that enough clinically proven studies are not available to warrant its inclusion. Since blood transfusion is not comparable in result with the above mentioned treatment and since no other alternatives were studied, it can be said that no alternative systems of treatment were included in this paper.

The study does cost analysis of treatment using the above mentioned drugs and states that darbepoetin alfa is cheaper in the long run,