Pharmacoeconomics in pediatrics: A new task for clinical pharmacology

Background: Pediatrics must adopt its own set of practices for assessing the pharmacoeconomics of therapeutics to help those who care for children to provide high-quality, efficient care and allocate resources appropriately.Objective: This article reviews the use of pharmacoeconomic analysis in pediatric research.Discussion: The major components of pharmacoeconomic analysis in pediatrics include health economics; burden of illness; health-technology assessment; disease models; and research on health outcomes, delivery, and policy. In pharmacoeconomic assessments of pediatric health care, impact on health status and impact on health costs must be carefully balanced. Among the issues in pediatric pharmacoeconomics that remain unresolved are the value of such analysis, its use as an aid to decision making (rather than a substitute for judgment), and the need to appraise the quality of pharmacoeconomic studies.Conclusions: Pharmacoeconomic analysis and outcomes research are still experimental tools, especially in the field of pediatrics. However, when properly applied, pharmacoeconomic analysis is a useful addition to technical and value judgments for health care providers and policymakers.