BMJ 1996;313:1203-1204 (9 November)

Letters

Cost effectiveness analyses have been carried out in Sweden

EDITOR,--T P Fahey and T J Peters applied five different sets of guidelines for the treatment of hypertension to patients from several general practices; only about one third of hypertensive patients met all the guideline criteria.1 In an editorial Rodney T Jackson and David L Sackett suggest (i) that the guidelines overemphasise clinically inappropriate relative measures of the benefit of treating raised blood pressure and (ii) that more interest should be focused on the absolute benefits of antihypertensive treatment.2 They also suggest (iii) "that clinicians practising evidence based medicine should explicitly consider the resource implications of their decisions (the cost effectiveness)."

A report published by the Swedish Council on Technology Assessment in Health Care (an independent Swedish civil service agency) addressed the problems of moderately raised blood pressure in Sweden.3 The report contains a critical review of the literature focusing on the absolute treatment effects attained and a series of . . . [Full text of this article]


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Relevant Article

What constitutes controlled hypertension? Patient based comparison of hypertension guidelines
T P Fahey and T J Peters
BMJ 1996 313: 93-96. [Abstract] [Full Text]

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