Hughes D, Cockerell O C
Department of Economics, City University, London, UK.
Seizure. 1996 Jun;5(2):89-95. doi: 10.1016/s1059-1311(96)80100-2.
Epilepsy is one of the commonest of the serious neurological disorders. The total economic burden of epilepsy in the United Kingdom has been estimated to be 1930 m pounds, with around 32 m pounds spent on antiepileptic drug therapy alone. Despite the high level of expenditure on drug therapy for epilepsy there is very little information regarding the relative cost-effectiveness of the different drugs available. It is important to establish the relative cost-effectiveness of therapies to provide decision makers with the information necessary to allocate resources in a rational manner and thus achieve the highest benefit for available resources. In this study the cost-effectiveness of lamotrigine, vigabatrin and gabapentin was estimated by a cost minimization analysis for the first year of drug therapy using data based on published studies. In general, there was little difference between the initial direct costs of treatment, however, the fewer side-effects associated with gabapentin is reflected in the lower total costs of treatment in the first year resulting in savings of 18.52 pounds per patient compared with lamotrigine and 47.18 pounds compared with vigabatrin. Based on incidence data estimates this translates to estimated direct cost savings to the UK of between 166,680 pounds and 424,620 pounds per annum.
癫痫是最常见的严重神经疾病之一。据估计，英国癫痫的总经济负担为1.93亿英镑，仅抗癫痫药物治疗一项就花费约3200万英镑。尽管癫痫药物治疗的支出水平很高，但关于现有不同药物的相对成本效益的信息却非常少。确定治疗方法的相对成本效益很重要，以便为决策者提供合理分配资源所需的信息，从而使可用资源获得最大效益。在本研究中，使用基于已发表研究的数据，通过成本最小化分析估算了拉莫三嗪、氨己烯酸和加巴喷丁在药物治疗第一年的成本效益。一般来说，初始治疗直接成本之间差异不大，然而，加巴喷丁相关副作用较少，这反映在第一年较低的治疗总成本上，与拉莫三嗪相比，每位患者可节省18.52英镑，与氨己烯酸相比可节省47.18英镑。根据发病率数据估算，这意味着英国每年可节省166,680英镑至424,620英镑的直接成本。
