Official websites use. Share sensitive information only on official, secure websites. We determined medical resource utilization among HIV-infected adults followed from to in Northern France.
The model projected a mean undiscounted LE of As HIV disease is treated earlier with more efficacious drugs, survival and thus costs of care will continue to increase. The availability in high-income countries of widely-used antiretroviral drugs in generic form could reduce these costs. Over the past two decades, survival among HIV-infected patients has increased substantially, largely due to the availability of more efficacious antiretroviral agents [ 1 — 3 ].
Guidelines have continued to move toward treating patients earlier in the course of disease [ 4 , 5 ], leading to increased use of both antiretroviral therapy ART and laboratory tests [ 6 ]. Recently updated HIV treatment guidelines in France and several other high-income countries [ 6 , 7 ] have also added newer and more expensive drugs to an increasing list of effective ART regimens.
Despite the emergence of generic drugs, recommendations to reduce the frequency of laboratory tests, and efforts to replace inpatient hospitalizations with outpatient visits whenever possible [ 8 ], increased routine costs and improved survival are likely to have increased the lifetime cost of care for HIV-infected patients in the last decade, and may continue to do so in coming years.
As costs of care for HIV-infected patients rise, national policy makers must determine the most efficient and cost-effective methods for managing HIV disease.
