[Methodology of pharmacoeconomic studies in oncology]. / Metodologie di analisi dei costi in oncologia.

Aim of the paper is to outline the methodology of pharmacoeconomic studies dealing with therapeutical interventions. The specificities of the cost evaluation are described, highlighting that the perspective of the evaluation must be always defined. The main types of pharmacoeconomic analyses are discussed, particularly the cost-effectiveness analysis (CEA) and the cost-utility analysis (CUA), and, in both cases, the importance of the incremental cost ratio is stressed. Moreover, sensitivity analysis is introduced as a tool to evaluate the stability of the results, when there is uncertainty in some estimation. Finally, the importance of pharmacoeconomic models is highlighted, although a great caution should be adopted in interpreting their results.