Coronary angioplasty versus medical therapy for angina: health service costs based on the second Randomised Intervention Treatment of Angina (RITA-2) trial

This is a critical abstract of an economic evaluation that meets the criteria for inclusion on NHS EED. Each abstract contains a brief summary of the methods, the results and conclusions followed by a detailed critical assessment on the reliability of the study and the conclusions drawn. The cost of an initial strategy of percutaneous transluminal coronary angioplasty (PTCA) exceeded that of a strategy of medical therapy by 74% over 3 years. The authors therefore suggested that, compared with medical therapy, PTCA had a greater likelihood of being cost-effective in patient sub-groups with more severe symptoms, assuming differential rates of death and myocardial infarction do not change with symptom severity.