Pershing S$,$ Enns EA$,$ Matesic B$,$ et al$.$ Cost$-$Effectiveness of Treatment of Diabetic Macular Edema. Ann Intern Med. $2014$;$160(1)$:$18-29.$

You can access assigned articles using links posted in the assignment description on Blackboard.

This activity is worth a maximum of $14$ points. You will receive $2$ points for each correct answer.

$1.$ Briefly summarize the issue$($s$)$ raised in your selected article. What question$($s$)$ were researchers attempting to answer?

$2.$ Often multiple treatment options, with varying costs and health benefits, are available to treat the same disease or condition. What treatments did researchers compare?

$3.$ Whether a treatment is found to be cost$-$effective depends upon the perspective taken, because treatment costs and benefits differ for each party. What perspective $($e$.$g$.$ individual, societal, health system, payers$)$ did the researchers adopt?

$4.$ Cost$-$effectiveness analysts must also make decisions about which costs to include in the analysis. Briefly summarize the direct and indirect costs associated with treatment.

$5.$ In order to calculate an ICER, we must correctly account for its health benefits. How did the researchers define the effectiveness of treatment?

$6.$ The CEF simplifies comparisons between treatments by allowing analysts to rule out dominated drugs $($which should never be used$)$ and focus only on options that are potentially cost$-$effective. Which of the treatment options under consideration were found to be potentially cost$-$effective? Were any treatment strategies found to be dominated?

$7.$ Cost$-$benefit analysis $($CBA$)$ is the process of choosing an optimal treatment among the potentially cost$-$effective ones, given a certain monetary value for each unit of health effect. Did researchers explicitly state a cost threshold in their discussion of results?