Table 3

Costs and cost-effectiveness per participant by treatment group

	ELE, $A	Prolotherapy, $A	Combined treatment, $A
Intervention costs
Medicare costs^*	259	460	433
Non-trial costs
Medicare costs^*	46	25	0
GP and specialist visits^†	46	2	9
Allied health professionals	25	0	79
Other costs	18	0	61
Pharmaceuticals	6	3	8
Total non-trial costs	141	30	158
Total cost per patient	400	490	591
Responders (at 12 mo)	0.733	0.786	0.857
Incremental analysis (vs ELE alone)
Additional costs, $A		90	191
Additional responders		0.052	0.124
ICER ($A /responder)		1716	1539
Sensitivity analysis		ICER, $A	ICER, $A
+20% intervention costs		3473	2238
−20% intervention costs		Dominates^‡	839
+20% non-trial costs		1831	1793
−20% non-trial costs		1602	1284
+10% responders		687	714
−10% responders		Dominated^§	5001

↵* Includes assessment and treatment. These costs are fully covered by Medicare, the government health insurance scheme.The general practitioners and specialist visit costs are in addition to those reimbursed by Medicare and are incurred by the patient.
↵† A proportion of those costs may be reimbursed to the patient depending on the level of cover of any health insurance they may have.
↵‡ A strategy dominates where greater health benefits are obtained at a lower cost than the comparator.
↵§ A strategy is said to be dominated where fewer health benefits are obtained at a higher cost than the comparator.