LAUSR

Cardiovascular clinicians are increasingly expected not only to optimise their patients’ health outcomes, but also to control costs and ensure the judicious use of healthcare resources. Clinicians must therefore have a rigorous understanding of costeffectiveness in order to determine whether the increased effectiveness or safety of novel therapies justifies their higher costs, compared with usual care. These economic considerations are becoming increasingly salient as newly approved cardiovascular drugs enter the market at eyewateringly high costs. Terms like costeffectiveness, affordability and budget impact are sometimes erroneously used interchangeably, yet they can have profoundly different implications for patients, providers and payors. In this paper, we offer a foundational understanding of costeffectiveness analysis (CEA) through three case studies of novel cardiovascular medications: tafamidis, proprotein convertase/subtilisin type 9 inhibitors (PCSK9i) and direct oral anticoagulants (DOACs). By helping readers confidently and correctly interpret CEAs, we hope to ensure that novel and effective cardiovascular therapies reach the patients most likely to benefit from them.