Enthusiasm, reality, and cost-effectiveness analysis

[...]only US centres participated and the American proclivity for aggressive interventional cardiology is well appreciated. 10-12 For example, a recent population study of elderly postmyocardial infarction patients showed that PTCA is performed eight times more frequently in American than Canadian patients with no difference in mortality at one year. 12 It is therefore quite possible that a soft end point, such as repeat PTCA, may be practice driven. [...]the incremental cost of $1054 is actually associated with an incremental efficacy of 3.6% (8.1% - 4.5%) giving a cost of $29 000 (1054/0.036) per patient free from a serious event.