Assessing the costs of treatment during a clinical trial

Some trials aim to compare the costs of different treatments. A new drug may be very expensive. However, the drug may help to reduce the costs of other parts of the treatment. An example of this is drugs that help boost the number of white blood cells and reduce the risk of infection for people having intensive chemotherapy|. These drugs are very expensive but they may reduce the time a person would otherwise need to spend in hospital due to infections. In such cases, the price of the drug may be less than the cost of the hospital care.

Ethics committees| make sure that a trial is planned so that it doesn’t put pressure on people to take part in order for them to have an expensive drug which would otherwise not be available to them.

Some clinical trials look at the cost-effectiveness of the treatment. They will include questions covering the cost of the treatment and also its effects on other aspects of care. These may include improvement in quality of life, or the need for other drugs to treat any side effects of the new treatment.

Some trials may also try to find out how the treatment affects cost in other areas of life and you may be asked questions about:

• travel
• the number of times you visit your doctor and nurse
• whether you were able to work during the treatment.

These are known as health economic studies.