Measuring the cost-effectiveness of hematopoietic growth factor therapy.

The increasing cost of and demand for health care have intensified the concern that some form of health care rationing is inevitable. Cost studies require the identification, measurement, and comparison of all significant positive and negative consequences of alternative interventions and may evaluate benefit value, effectiveness, and effect on quality or quantity of life. The hematopoietic growth factors (HGF) will have far-reaching effect on the practice of medicine and, therefore, the design of cost-effectiveness studies are critically important in assessing economic effect.