The impact of new antiretroic therapeutic schemes on the cost for AIDS treatment in Greece.

The paper attempts to evaluate the clinical and economic benefits between the administration of the dual and triple antiretroic schemes for the treatment of the HIV disease. Clinical and economic data are derived from patients hospitalized in 1996 and 1997 at the University Department of Dermatology and Venereology of Andreas Sygros Hospital. Methodology is based on the comparison of patients' nosological profile and direct annual cost before and after the administration of the triple treatment. The results of the study present that the triple combination therapy yields superior health outcomes, (decrease in the days of hospitalization and in the opportunistic disease events as well as fewer deaths and loss of production). Cost comparison presents a small decrease in the annual patient's cost, where all cost components are diminished, except the medication cost. A substitution of hospital care by drug therapy is revealed and a great change is taken place in the composition of the drugs' cost. Patient cost for antiretroic drugs has more than doubled from 1996 to 1997.