Health gain and cost saving
asthma, wheeze, exacerbations
ASTHMA
The health gain will directly arise as a consequence of a higher proportion of children with asthma control. Furthermore, a considerable annual cost-saving might occur because of reduced referrals and hospital visits after a diagnosis of transient wheeze is established. Not included in the calculations are positive quality of life (QoL) effects due to reductions in side-effects of asthma medication in children with transient wheeze, and broader QoL effects due to better asthma control and less exacerbations, which will impact quality-adjusted-life-years but is hard to estimate. Therefore, both the overall health effect and cost savings are expected to be larger than calculated above. As a consequence, the cost-efficiency of health care to this large group of children will substantially improve. Moreover, by means of the breath test, the cost-effectiveness of pharmacotherapy in this group of children will increase. The breath test will result in concrete and significant improvements for daily clinical care: by using the test, a substantial gain in health outcome parameters as well as in costs of care will occur.