The cost-effectiveness of testing for hepatitis C in former injecting drug users

Abstract

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Cost-Effectiveness of the National Screening Program for Hepatitis C Virus in the General Population and the High-Risk Groups

“…From an economic perspective, it is obvious that the screening for HCV in the high-risk group, such as intravenous drug users, previously operated people, hemodialysis patients, and previously transfused people, would be more effective than that in the general population since the infection rates of HCV in the highrisk group are reported to be higher. Previously, several cost-effectiveness analyses of the screening for HCV in such high-risk groups are reported (Gordon 1999;Pereira and Sanz 2000;Saab et al 2001;Stein et al 2004;Castelnuovo et al 2006;Fig. 1.…”

Birmingham and Lambeth Liver Evaluation Testing Strategies (BALLETS): a prospective cohort study

“…Our findings support viral testing only in the former group, consistent with the threshold prevalence for both HBV and HCV, of approximately 3%, at which population screening becomes cost-effective. 106,114,115 Four of the strategies -C, D, E and F -entail viral testing in a population in which the rate of hepatitis exceeds the 3% threshold for which testing has proven cost-effective in screening programmes (see Table 80). The cost-effective threshold is probably a little lower in a diagnostic population than in a screening population (costs of inviting people to attend are lower and cases detected might be a slightly higher risk), but no other strategy yields a population with hepatitis rate exceeding even 2%.…”

A Practical Guide to Value of Information Analysis

“…The inclusion of VoI as a part of health economic evaluations is increasing [3][4][5][6][7][8][9][10][11][12]. This is useful to direct future research effort to where it can achieve the greatest expected return for finite funding.…”