Economic evaluation of new treatments: haematopoietic growth factors

The clinical benefits of new healthcare interventions usually receive considerable attention, but their impact on the economic aspects of care provision are not so well considered. Among the issues that different audiences will want to see addressed are: how clinical benefits translate into resource use savings in practice; the extent to which clinical trial outcomes can be said to be representative or normal practice and the value of the economic impact to purchasers and providers. In this review we consider these elements using the haematopoietic growth factors as an example.