In this specific type of analysis, one can determine costs associated with various treatments in terms of utilities, which can be looked at as quantity and quality of life. This type of analysis can be employed to compare different medications or procedures in which the perceived benefits can be different in nature. This analysis can be used to measure the incremental cost to gain an extra quality-adjusted life-year (QALY) . The QALY used by the CUA technique can be defined as the outcome measured as life years gained adjusted (weighted) by patient preferences for various health states . The fourth major technique that can be used when performing a pharmacoeconomic analysis is the cost-benefit analysis (CBA) is considered the broadest form of all the economic evaluation types. The importance of this technique lies within the ability to analyze the costs associated with particular medical intervention as well as the benefit. CBA can be used to evaluate both incremental costs and outcomes in monetary terms, which will allow for a direct calculation of the net monetary cost of achieving a health outcome …show more content…
CMA has the advantage of being the simplest of the of all the pharmacoeconomic techniques in that the comparisons performed are considered to be equivalent, which allows one, the ease of only evaluating the cost of the medication or intervention to be looked at. This technique can be highly effective when comparing equivalent treatments, but will be inappropriate when there is no equivalence between two products or if therapeutic equivalence cannot be demonstrated . CMA will be applied more often in the health sector and we can evaluate this type of analysis as it relates to a diuretic-based antihypertensive therapy reducing cardiovascular events in older adults with isolated systolic hypertension. The CMA analysis used in this trial was able to present cost as the number-needed-to treat (NNT) of patients for 5 years to prevent one adverse event associated with cardiovascular disease (CVD) . The result of this study found the cost of 5 year NNT to prevent one adverse CVD event ranged widely from $6,843 to $37,408 in older patients with isolated systolic hypertension (ISH)7. Based on the CMA, researchers were able to define that CMA was most cost-effective in patients that were at high risk for developing CVD, therefore confirming that the use of CMA was effective in evaluating input costs pertaining to equivalent outcomes. Further, it can be argued that it is inappropriate for separate