Читать книгу Clinical Pharmacology and Therapeutics - Группа авторов - Страница 146

Cost–utility analysis (CUA) is a special form of CEA where alternative interventions are compared in terms of their impact on a single measure which tries to capture all the benefits (and adverse effects) of the intervention in question. The cost per quality‐adjusted life year (QALY), a measure that combines the impact of both the additional length of life and quality of life available from a treatment, is the most commonly used measure in CUA.

It is useful to have a working knowledge of CUA in today's healthcare environment, because it is the preferred method of economic evaluation of organisations such as NICE, SMC and other health technology assessment (HTA) agencies worldwide. CUA has been widely adopted, largely because it can be used to compare the cost‐effectiveness of the many different types of interventions that HTA organisations must assess.