Abstract
The purpose of this paper is to evaluate the cost-effectiveness of the beta blocker bisoprolol in heart failure by combining resampling of the clinical trial data with stochastic modelling of the expected remaining lifetime for patients alive at the end of the clinical trial. This is a reassessment of an economic evaluation of the beta blocker bisoprolol that has previously been published. The main difference between this study and the previous one lies in the estimation of uncertainty. In the earlier study, the health effects were estimated by combining the survival times from the clinical trial, which the economic evaluation was based on, with a deterministic additional survival time for the patients who were alive at the end of clinical trial. The results were then evaluated by perfonning a sensitivity analysis. In this study, the deterministic modelling of the survival after the end of the clinical trial is replaced by stochastic modelling, and the uncertainty of the experimental data is assessed by a repeated resampling (bootstrap) procedure. The average value ofthe net (monetary) benefit is SEK 101 400 at a value of SEK 450000 per year of life gained. A one-sided confidence interval on the 5% level shows that the net (monetary) benefit is significantly larger than zero.