ECONOMIC-EVALUATION OF RAMIPRIL IN PATIENTS WITH HEART-FAILURE AFTER ACUTE MYOCARDIAL-INFARCTION

In the Acute Infarction Ramipril Efficacy (AIRE) Study administration of the ACE inhibitor ramipril adjuvant to usual care led to a highly s ignificant reduction in total mortality and rehospitalisation due to h eart failure for patients with heart failure after myocardial infarcti on, when compared to placebo adjuvant to usual care. The purpose of th e economic evaluation of the AIRE Study for Germany is to quantify the target variable additional expenditure of the Public Health Insurance (PHI) on ramipril per life-year gained, The target variable is quanti fied in a study via model calculation after secondary analysis of exis ting data, In the primary analysis, average case-related expenditure o f the PHI are applied, The economic evaluation is differentiated for f our treatment periods of the AIRE Study: 1 year, 2 years, 3 years and the total study period (3.8 years), Additional expenditure of the PHI per life-year gained are between about DM 2,500 (after 3.8 years) and DM 8,300 (after 1 year), In the sensitivity analysis, the extent of th e influence of different model variables on the primary result is inve stigated, Avoided rehospitalisations due to heart failure under ramipr il medication turned out to give a significant impact.