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The trial included patients from 150 primary-care practices in the UK who were taking oral antidepressants (citalopram, fluoxetine, mirtazapine or sertraline) for at least 9 months and were well enough to consider stopping medication. Discontinuation of antidepressants is unlikely to be cost effective compared with maintenance, according to a cost-utility analysis (CUA) based on a randomised controlled trial conducted in the UK. [Extracted from the article]

NICE draft guidance does not recommend tucatinib for advanced breast cancer. Despite a lack of treatment options for advanced, HER2-positive breast cancer, UK's National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) has decided not to recommend the tyrosine kinase inhibitor, tucatinib [TUKYSA; Seagen Inc], in its latest draft guidance. [Extracted from the article]

The guideline recommends a more targeted and flexible approach to ensure that people experiencing homelessness have the same access to health and social care as the general population. The National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) and the Centre for Homelessness Impact (CHI) have published a new joint draft guideline that aims to increase the access to health and social care services for people experiencing homelessness in the UK. [Extracted from the article]

In the UK, RSV vaccination for the 11.8 million individuals aged >=65 years would avert 238 930 symptomatic RSV cases, with vaccine EJPs of £72.29 and £109.74 at WTP thresholds of £20 000 and £30 000 per QALY. In both countries, the EJP varied significantly according to vaccine efficacy: lower vaccine efficacy reduced the EJP, while higher vaccine efficacy increased it. [Extracted from the article]

UK's National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) has released a new guideline that emphasises the need to ensure that children and young people have positive interactions with the healthcare system in order to reduce anxiety around engaging with the system later in life and poorer health outcomes. Commenting on the guideline, Director of the Centre for Guidelines at NICE, Dr Paul Chrisp, said: "this is the first guideline we've published that specifically addresses the experiences of patients aged under 18. [Extracted from the article]

However, if infection risk was at the highest level (20%), AMR was less important than when infection risk was low (5%). A survey of different strategies to optimise antibiotic use and the willingness to pay (WTP) to prevent future antimicrobial resistance (AMR) in the UK appears to show that it is an important topic with a high WTP - ranging from £5 to £10 billion a year, according to the results of a study published in I Pharmacoeconomics i . [Extracted from the article]

Midostaurin (taken orally twice daily) works by blocking multiple enzymes involved in the condition, and will be the first targeted therapy for advanced systemic mastocytosis available on the NHS. In draft guidance, the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) has recommended midostaurin [Rydapt; Novartis] for adult patients with advanced systemic mastocytosis. [Extracted from the article]

The guideline is an update of the previous 2008 guideline and aims to ensure that pregnant women receive consistent, evidence-based care throughout regardless of where they are in the country. The National Institute for Health Care Excellence (NICE) has published an updated antenatal care guideline focusing on women-centred care, informed shared decision making and the role of partners during pregnancy. [Extracted from the article]

The findings were robust to changes in a range of input parameters; however, "the probability that user testing is cost-effective and cost-saving is reduced for lower risk medicines, but is still 71% and 80% (respectively), as user-testing is a low-cost intervention" point out the authors. User-testing injectable medicines guidelines for nurses appears to reduce the number of medication errors when giving intravenous medicines to hospitalised patients, and therefore "the cost of the user-testing process is likely to be outweighed by the increased health of patients and reduced health service costs for treating the harm caused by medication errors", say the UK-based authors of a study published in I Applied Health Economics and Health Policy i . [Extracted from the article]

Adding a multi-cancer early-detection (MCED) blood test to current recommended screening "can potentially be an efficient strategy" in the USA and the UK, say the researchers of a study funded by GRAIL. Incremental cancers detected by the MCED test for each cancer type were calculated by multiplying the cancers that not detected by current guideline-recommended screening, sensitivity of the MCED test for that cancer type, and adherence to MCED testing. [Extracted from the article]

Continuous Monitoring of Respiratory Rate with Wearable Sensor in Patients Admitted to Hospital with Pneumonia Compared with Intermittent Nurse-Led Monitoring in the United Kingdom: A Cost-Utility Analysis. A cost-effectiveness analysis published in I Pharmcoeconomics - Open i has found that automatic respiratory rate (RR) monitoring with RespiraSense, in addition to intermittent nurse-led monitoring, for inpatients with pneumonia may be a cost-saving and cost-effective intervention in the UK "if the minimum clinical thresholds are met", say the authors. [Extracted from the article]