ABSTRACT
BACKGROUNDS: This study aims to estimate the impact of preventing urinary tract infections (UTI), using a strategy of increased water intake, from the payer's perspective in the French health care system. METHODS: A Markov model enables a comparison of health care costs and outcomes for a virtual cohort of subjects with different levels of daily water intake. The analysis of the budgetary impact was based on a period of 5years. The analysis was based on a 25-year follow-up period to assess the effects of adequate water supply on long-term complications. RESULTS: The authors estimate annual primary incidence of UTI and annual risk of recurrence at 5.3% and 30%, respectively. Risk reduction associated with greater water intake reached 45% and 33% for the general and recurrent populations, respectively. The average total health care cost of a single UTI episode is 1074; for a population of 65 millions, UTI management represents a cost of 3.700 millions for payers. With adequate water intake, the model indicates a potential cost savings of 2.288 millions annually, by preventing 27 million UTI episodes. At the individual level, the potential cost savings is approximately 2915. CONCLUSIONS: Preventing urinary tract infections using a strategy of adequate water intake could lead to significant cost savings for a public health care system. Further studies are needed to assess the effectiveness of such an approach.
Subject(s)
Drinking , Urinary Tract Infections/economics , Urinary Tract Infections/prevention & control , Cost Savings , France , Humans , Markov Chains , Primary Prevention/economicsABSTRACT
Cross-species differences between human and fish estrogen receptor (ER) binding by environmental chemicals have been reported. To study ER transactivation in a fish cellular context, we stably co-transfected the PLHC-1 fish hepatoma cell line with a rainbow trout estrogen receptor (rtER) and the luciferase reporter gene driven by an estrogen response element (ERE). This new cell model, called PELN-rtER (for PLHC-1-ERE-Luciferase-Neomycin), responded to 17beta-estradiol (E2) in a both concentration- and temperature-dependent manner, as well as to environmental ER ligands from different chemical classes: natural and synthetic estrogens, zearalenone metabolites, genistein, alkyphenoles and benzophenone derivatives. The comparison with other in vitro models, i.e. human reporter cell lines (HELN-rtER, MELN) and vitellogenin induction in primary cultures of rainbow trout hepatocytes, showed an overall higher sensitivity of the human cells for a majority of ligands, except for benzophenone derivatives which were active at similar or lower concentrations in fish cells, suggesting species-specificity for these substances. Correlation analyses suggest that the fish cell line is closer to the trout hepatocyte than to the human cell context, and could serve as a relevant mechanistic tool to study ER activation in fish hepatic cellular context.
