ABSTRACT
Health economics analysis normally provides a rationale for an efcient allocation of scare resources in health care. The incremental cost-effectiveness ratio (added marginal cost divided by added marginal effect of a new intervention) has been the standard for measuring the economic benet of a health care technology and has been used for several decades. This analysis has been adopted by many national guidelines providing results that help local decision makers in their economic appraisal of new interventions (ISPOR 2008). The cost-effectiveness of a given product is assessed against this incremental cost-effectiveness ratio and accepted when the ratio is below a pre-dened threshold value (€20,000 in the Netherlands, £20,000-30,000 in the UK, three times the gross domestic product (GDP)/capita as set by the WHO, etc.) (McCabe et al. 2008; WHO 2008; Rogoza et al. 2009).
