Table 4.

Base case summary

Decision problem  (scope)	How cost effective is annual surveillance for development of cirrhosis in UK patients in the NHS with chronic HCV for the purpose of commencing screening to diagnose HCC? How cost effective is replacing biopsy with fibroscan for surveillance of progression of fibrosis to cirrhosis in UK patients with chronic HCV for the purpose of commencing screening to diagnose of HCC?
Comparators	Liver biopsy and fibroscan
Model structure	State transition Markov model with cohort simulation analysis
Population	Hypothetical cohort of 10,000 34–year–old patients newly diagnosed with chronic HCV and no fibrosis
Setting	UK NHS
Time horizon	Lifetime
Cycle length	3 months
Benefits	QALYs; unadjusted life years; number with cirrhosis correctly diagnosed; number with HCC diagnosed
Costs perspective	NHS: costs from micro–costing studies and reference tables valued in 2012 £ sterling
Discounting	Costs and benefits discounted at 3.5 %
Equity weighting	All additional QALYs have equal weight regardless of the beneficiary