Bayesian estimation of cost-effectiveness from censored data.

We describe a Bayesian methodology for estimating the cost-effectiveness of a new treatment compared to a standard in a clinical trial, when censoring of survival, the effectiveness variable, induces censoring of total cost. The statistical model assumes that survival follows a Weibull distribution and that total health care cost follows a gamma distribution whose mean has a linear regression on survival time. We summarize the posterior distributions of key parameters by importance sampling. We illustrate the method with an analysis of data from a randomized clinical trial of a treatment for cardiovascular disease. Copyright 2004 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.