Cost-effectiveness of anaesthesia.

Cost-effectiveness analyses of anaesthesia regimens will become more and more important in the future because of increasing pressure to reduce the cost of health care. Inhalational and intravenous techniques are vying for the position of being the most cost-effective form of general anaesthesia. However, erroneous or misleading results are a considerable risk if the boundary conditions of the analyses are not chosen carefully. Recent comparative studies on this topic are analyzed with regard to their results and to the premises under which they were conducted.