What Does It Cost to Help Just One Patient?
If only 2 people in a group of 100 are expected to have a heart attack, then a drug that cuts the rate by 50% prevents just 1 heart attack when taken by all 100 people. The “number needed to treat” (NNT) for one person to benefit in this case is 100. Here are other drugs:
Source: BusinessWeek
Interesting. In the case of Zetia, 999 cases are wasted so that one person can be saved. But we can’t elilminate the waste, because we don’t know who the one person is.
This article should be required reading for every doctor and patient in America. You have to treat 500 to 1000 people with statins, Avandia or Zetia to prevent one death or serious medical complication. Treating 500 to 1000 for many years would cost untold millions of dollars. On the other hand, proper diet, exercise and appropriate lifestyle behaviors would probably benefit every single person engaging in the behavior.
This is a fascinating chart. I’ve never seen drug therapy explained this way. However, I’m sure a lot of doctor therapy and hospital care could also be looked at in this way.
I would bet that most Lipitor takers have no idea how small the odds of success are.
Really interesting. Thanks for posting this.
You and your doctor can read the article, but under ObamaCare you both will still have to follow guideline care or be punished. Current NIH guidelines are at http://www.nhlbi.nih.gov/guidelines/cholesterol/atglance.pdf.
For perspective, the chicken pox vaccine is given to millions of kids in order to prevent complications that occur in an estimated 8.5 per 100,000 cases. (Ziebold, 2001). So, you have to treat 10,000 kids to prevent one complication.
Don’t the cost of drugs vary in direct proportion to the number of people needed to treat? As I recall, an antiobiotic costs about $15. Whereas I’m sure Zetia is an arm and a leg.
The number needed to treat is just that, regardless of the cost.
Whether a particular drug or treatment is a good deal depends on things like the severity of the condition that it ameliorates, the cost of otherwise treating that condition, the side effects that various treatments cause, the gain from various treatments, and the direct and indirect cost of those treatments.
Needless to say, the value of treatment will vary from person to person. Just another reason why central planning does not seem to produce good health care results.