[Effect of medicamentous cholesterol control on resources utilization in public health--significance of the Scandinavian Simvastatin Survival Study (4-S Study) for cost control in Swiss health management conditions].

Upward spiralling health care expenditures have triggered the need to assess the cost-effectiveness of medical interventions. Specifically, interventions in primary and secondary prevention represent an important field of research. A resource utilization analysis was performed on the basis of the recently published Scandinavian Simvastatin Survival Study. It could be shown that treatment with simvastatin compared to placebo leads to a reduction in patient costs of CHF 8.4 million. This represents a reduction of CHF 3770.- per patient. The effective daily treatment costs can thus be calculated at CHF 1.11, which is equivalent to 36% of the actual acquisition cost per day. These results support the notion that secondary coronary prevention is not only justified from a clinical but also from an economic point of view.