This book explores the comparative effectiveness of medical treatments as applied in the health care sector. An analysis of comparative effectiveness is simply a comparison of the impact of different options that are available for treating a given medical condition for a particular set of patients. These studies may compare both similar treatments, such as competing drugs, or they may analyze very different approaches, such as surgery and drug therapy. The analysis may focus only on the relative medical benefits and risks of each option, or it may go on to weigh both the costs and the...