Economic benefit analysis of primary prevention with pravastatin

BMJ 1998;316:1241 ( 18 April )

Letters

Economic benefit analysis of primary prevention with pravastatin

Modelling economic benefits after such long term treatment is inappropriate

Assumptions are methodologically flawed

Author's reply

Modelling economic benefits after such long term treatment is inappropriate

The first 150 words of the full text of this article appear below.

EDITOR $---$ The West of Scotland Coronary Prevention Study Group used an epidemiological model to estimate the cost effectivenessratio for cholesterol lowering with pravastatin.¹ Althoughthe title suggests otherwise, this is not a direct health economicanalysis of original trial data, and why such an analysis hasnot been published is unclear. Original trial data would providedirect estimates of the number of life years of survival in treatedand untreated groups, over the five years of the study. Similarly,a direct estimate of the drug costs would have been available;these would have been offset by an estimate of savings from thereduction in non-fatal adverse events.

A close approximation to this can be carried out by using published data. The all cause death rate in the treated group overfive years in the trial was 3.2%, compared with 4.1% in the untreatedgroup.² With a starting population . . . [Full text of this article]

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