With the increasing demand for health technology decision making in hospitals, the activities of hospital-based health technology assessment are increasing globally. Several developed countries, such as France, Finland, Denmark, Italy, Canada, The United State and Australia have carried out hospital-based health technology assessment activities. In order to further promote the development of health technology assessment in China and establish evidence-based management and decision-making concept of hospitals, the National Center for Medical Service Administration has carried out theoretical and practical research on hospital technology assessment by fully drawing on foreign advanced experience. This paper introduces the background, object, method and content of the research, the achievements of the pilot project and the prospect of the future, so as to provide a reference for readers to understand the overall situation of the project and related work.
Compared with traditional HTA, the most fundamental feature of HB-HTA is “organizational perspective”, which is based on the actual situation of the hospital and supports hospital management decision-making. The new health care reform has set higher goals and requirements for hospitals. HB-HTA has management, economic and technical functions, and it can provide methodological support for health care policy management and decision-making based on the current optimal evidence, and promote the transformation of hospital from administrative decision-making to evidence informed decision-making. As an integral part of HTA network, HB-HTA plays a role in health technology networks through vertical cooperation mechanism and horizontal diffusion mechanism. It can interact and cooperate with national and regional HTA, as well as spread based on a specific medical field.
Objective This review compared clinical effectiveness, cardiac safety and economics of astemizole, loratadine, cetirizine and terfenadine to provide evidence for adjustment of Essential Drug List in China. Search strategy We searched Medline, Cochrane Library, Embase and Chinese Biomedical Database. Fourteen databases for drug safety and pharmaceutical economics were additionally searched. Selection Criteria Randomized controlled trials and systematic reviews, published in English and Chinese and comparing two or more of these four antihistamines for allergic rhinitis and urticaria were included for study of effectiveness. Non-randomized clinical trials were additionally included for economic evaluation. Cardiac safety studies of antihistamines for allergic diseases of any type were included. Quality Appraisal Jadad scale was primarily applied to randomized controlled trials. Allocation concealment and intention-to-treat analysis were also appraised. The QUOROM statement was applied to systematic reviews and meta-analysis. Data extraction and analyses For the study of effectiveness, composite data were primarily extracted and analyzed by fixed effect model. Sensitivity analysis was done to explore the heterogeneity. For the study of cardiac safety, cases of adverse drug reactions and death were summarized. Difference of occurrence rate in sex and age were analyzed if possible.Electrocardiography and clinical symptoms were summarized. Results No studies on economic evaluation were identified. 27 and 6 randomized controlled trials, including 3 227 participants, for allergic rhinitis and urticaria were identified. Cetirizine was superior to loratadine (n=709) in symptom score and onset of action, superior to terfenadine (n=645) in Quality of Life and superior to astemizole (n=498) in patient satisfaction and onset of action. 73 h-ADR cases were identified in astemizole, 27 cases in terfenadine, 1 case in loratadine and none in cetirizine. No deaths were identified. Combination of terfenadine plus grapefruit juice (n=l8), itraconazole (n=6), nefazodone (n=67), and loratadine administration concomitant with cemitidine (n=30) significantly prolonged QTc interval. Conclusions Cetirizine was superior to other three antihistamines in terms of clinical effectiveness and drug safety. Astemizole and terfenadine could cause significantly more cardiac-related adverse reactions than cetirizine and loratadine.
Objective To systematically review the efficacy, safety, cost-effectiveness, indications, contraindications, and ethical issues for surgical treatment of Alzheimer's disease (AD). Methods The CNKI, WanFang Data, VIP, PubMed, Web of Science, Embase and Cochrane Library databases were electronically searched to collect for relevant studies on surgical treatment of AD from inception to November 26, 2024. Two reviewers independently screened literature, extracted data, and assessed the risk of bias of the included studies. Meta-analysis was performed by using Stata 17 software. Results A total of 59 studies were included. The results revealed that surgical treatment for AD had higher safety (OR=0.44, 95%CI 0.17 to 0.72, P<0.05), and patients had better ADAS-cog scores (SMD=0.54, 95%CI 0.18 to 0.90, P<0.05), with statistically significant differences. The economic burden of surgical treatment for AD increased with the severity of the disease. Deep brain stimulation may offer high economic benefits in the treatment of mild AD. The surgical indications can be summarized as: short disease duration, mild to moderate severity, and insufficient response to pharmacological interventions. Regarding contraindications, analysis of the included literature identified four core aspects: physiological and pathological contraindications, medical comorbidities and surgical risk contraindications, cognitive and psychological factor contraindications, and other contraindications. Ethical issues can be categorized into: informed consent and autonomy, ethical review and approval of research, and assessment of risks and benefits. Conclusion Current evidence suggests that surgical treatment for AD has certain benefits, but the surgical approaches for treating AD are still in the exploratory stage. Limited by the number and quality of the included studies, the above conclusion still requires more high-quality research to be verified.
Background In the latter of 20th century, a global growth in allergic diseases has been witnessed, accompanying with spring-out of therapeutic drugs. However, trials did not clarify the comparative effectiveness and pharmaceutical economics of these agents. Severe adverse drug effects have been reported increasingly in the last few years. These made it difficult for clinical practice and selection of national essential drugs. Objective To assess astemizole, loratadine, cetirizine and tefenadine for allergic rhinitis (AR) and urticaria in terms of effectiveness, heart-related drug adverse effects and pharmaceutical economics. Search strategy Cochrane Library, Medline, Embase and Chinese Biomedical Database will be searched. Additional database should be searched for safety and economic studies. Selection Criteria The publication languages are restrained to English and Chinese. 1) Effectiveness: high-quality randomized controlled trials (RCTs) and systematic Reviews (SRs)/ meta-analysis for AR and uritcaria are included, with comparisons restrained to among these four drugs; 2) Safety: a hierarchy of evidences of these four drugs for allergic diseases are included. 3) Economical evaluation: cost-effectiveness and cost-utility assessment of these four drugs for AR and urticaria should be included. Methods of review data extraction sheet and quality appraisal table are separately designed. QUOROM STATEMENT and Jadad Scale are applied, respectively, to SRs and RCTs. Two reviewers independently select the studies, appraise the quality and extract the data. Any disagreement is solved by discussion. Data analysis Fixed effect model is first applied. Sensitivity analysis is employed to study the heterogeneity between trials. Randomized effect model is alternatively used when compromised.
Objective We aimed to evaluate the comparative efficacy and cost-effectiveness of the ECMO versus mechanical ventilation through a rapid health technology assessment. Methods PubMed, EMbase, The Cochrane Library, CNKI, WanFang Data, and CBM databases were electronically searched to collect randomized controlled trials (RCTs), systematic reviews, meta-analyses, complete economic evaluations, and CRD database for HTA reports from inception to December 2020. Two reviewers independently screened literature, extracted data, and assessed the risk of bias of the included studies. Descriptive analysis and summary were then performed. Results A total of 21 references were involved, including 2 HTA reports, 5 RCTs, 11 systematic reviews or meta-analyses, and 3 economic evaluations. The quality of the literature evidence was heterogenous, and only 2 RCTs of high quality were included for meta-analysis. The results showed that the difference of 60-day mortality between ECMO and mechanical ventilation was statistically significant (RR=0.73, 95%CI 0.57 to 0.92, P=0.007). The majority of recent meta-analysis literature showed that short-term mortality of ECMO treatment was lower than that of mechanically ventilated patients. The cost-effective literature from different countries all showed that it was cost-effective in their respective health system, however, the quality of the literature varied. Conclusions Current evidence shows that ECMO has better safety, effectiveness and cost-effectiveness for ARDS compared with mechanical ventilation. However, it still required to be verified by high-quality studies with a long-term follow-up. Validate conclusions are needed through rigorous health technology assessments.
ObjectiveTo explore the current situation, progress and hot spots of hospital-based health technology assessment (HB-HTA) at home and abroad. MethodsThe China National Knowledge Infrastructure (CNKI) and Web of Science databases were electronically searched to collect publications on HB-HTA. The bibliographic item co-occurrence mining system and VOSviewer software were used to extract and visually analyze HB-HTA literature. ResultsA total of 6 016 publications were included. Research on HB-HTA started late in China, however, it gradually increased in recent years. The Chinese research topics mainly focused on the application of hospital health technology evaluation in the management of medical equipment and consumables, and the English research topics mainly focused on the evaluation of the effectiveness, safety and cost of hospital health technology, especially information technology. ConclusionIn recent years, increasing attention has been given to HB-HTA. Related research topics have mainly focused on hospital technology access, management, and hospital health decision management.
ObjectiveTo rapidly review the effectiveness, safety, costs and applicability of helical tomotherapy (HT), so as to provide currently-available best evidence for decision makers of government health policies. MethodsWe electronically searched databases including PubMed, EMbase, The Cochrane Library, CNKI, WanFang Data, VIP, CBM and other relevant professional websites. Two reviewers independently screened literature according to the inclusion and exclusion criteria, extracted data, assessed quality, and then performed descriptive analysis. Resultsa) We finally included 150 studies, encompassing 5 health technology assessments (HTAs), 18 clinical controlled trials (CCTs), and 127 observational studies. b) Four included HTAs were published during 2006-2009, providing fairly less evidence of low quality and the results of 145 primary studies showed that:HT was mainly used in the treatments of 14 types of cancer, with relatively low total toxicity and high survival rates. Although the quality of the included studies was poor, there was much evidence about prostate cancer, head and neck cancer, nasopharynx cancer, cervical cancer, lung cancer and liver cancer, with accumulatively enough sample size and fairly reliable results in HT's efficacy and safety. And c) a total of 56 clinical trials had bee registered in Clinicaltrials.gov, most of which were registered by the occident; among them, 9 had been come to the end, yet without results published. ConclusionCurrent evidence of this study showed that, HT is safe and effective in clinic. But the abovementioned conclusion needs to be verified by conducting more high quality studies with long-term follow-up. The costs of HT in procurement, maintenance and application are high; and the skills, training and qualification of operators are required. We suggest that the procurement of HT should be reduced; it should be allocated rationally and effectively used after comprehensive assessment in China's cancer epidemiology characteristics, health resource allocation, disease burden, medical service level, etc.; and also high quality studies with long-term follow-up should be financially supported on the basis of establishing projects, so as to provide local evidence and consistently guide and improve scientific decision making.
Objective To evaluate the efficacy, safety and economical values of nucleic acid/nueleotides for clinical nutritional support and immune treatment. Methods The following electronic databases were searched: Chinese Biomedicine database (CBM), MEDLINE, EMBASE and SCI. Data were extracted by two reviewers. Applied RevMan 4.1 for statistical analyse. Results Forty-six randomized controlled trials were identified, involving nucleic acids/nucleotides for clinical nutritional support, infant feed, immune treatment. Eighteen randomized trials comparing the use of immunonutrition which comprises nucleotides with standard enteral nutrition in surgical and critical ill patients. Combined analysis directed that immunonutrition therapy decrease infection events, length of hospitalization and the cost. Only one trial reported the effects of adding nucleotides to breast milk substitute, but there is no valuable results for clinical practice. Twenty-seven low quality trials compared the use of "immune RNA (iRNA)" with standard methods in hepatitis, carcinoma and burn patients, combined analysis directed that there are not valid evidences to confirm the value of iRNA. Conclusions Immunonutrition may decrease infection rates, length of hospitalisation and cost in surgery and critical ill patients, but we can not affirm the role of the nucleotides in irmnunonutrition. No evidences support the point of adding nucteotides in breast milk substitute. Also, we can not affirm the role of iRNA in clinical immune regulation treatment. There are no available evidences in nucleic acids for caducity prevention and improvement of aging people’s health. Consequently, we advice Chinese health officials to enhance the management for applying "nucleic acids nutrients".