ABSTRACT
Glaucoma is the leading cause of irreversible blindness in Brazil. Its prevalence and incidence tend to increase significantly in the future, mainly due to the population increase and aging. The scarcity of health care resources and the increasing costs in health require a balanced analysis of health interventions and an efficient allocation of resources. The cost-effectiveness and cost-utility studies are important because they allow a comparison between different alternatives in terms of both their costs and their results. For this purpose, mathematical modeling (such as Markov modeling) is commonly used as the analytical method. The literature, including in Brazil, has plenty of evidence of cost-effectiveness and cost-utility in glaucoma. This article aims to review in a practical way the concepts of economic evaluation in health, describe the different types of health economic studies, as well as the results of cost-effectiveness and cost-utility studies in glaucoma in the literature.
Keywords:
Glaucoma/diagnosis; Glauco/therapy; Glaucoma/economics; Public Health; Health economics; Cost-benefit analysis