[Health-care costs and health technology assessment]

This paper is made up of four sections: a) an overview of the relationship between health-care costs and health technology assessment; b) the state of art of the research into health technology assessment with details on the main fields of research, the results obtained, and the gaps to be bridged; c) an analysis of the techniques for assessing health-care technology (cost-minimization analysis [CMA]; cost-effectiveness analysis [CEA]; cost-utility analysis [CUA]; cost-benefit analysis [CBA]); and d) an overview of the use of the four assessment techniques between 1980 to 2006 in nephrology, with special emphasis on dialysis.