Induction of labour versus expectant management for prelabour rupture of the membranes at term: an economic evaluation. TERMPROM Study Group. Term Prelabour Rupture of the Membranes.

What Was Tested

The paper reports a study of Oxytocin, published as a randomized controlled trial.

To conduct an economic evaluation comparing the cost of (a) IwO and EM-O, (b) IwP and EM-P and (c) IwO and IwP.

Why It Was Studied

Recently the TERMPROM (Term Prelabor Rupture of the Membranes) Study Group reported the results of a randomized controlled trial comparing 4 management strategies: induction with oxytocin (IwO), induction with prostaglandin (IwP), and expectant management and induction with either oxytocin (EM-O) or prostaglandin (EM-P) if complications developed.

Who Took Part

PubMed tags the participants as women only.

Analysis included all treatment costs incurred for both the mother and the baby.

Information on health care utilization and outcomes was collected for all study participants.

How the Study Was Run

In design terms this was a randomized study.

The participants were allocated by chance, so the Oxytocin group and the comparison group should start out alike.

An economic analysis, conducted alongside the clinical trial, using a third-party payer perspective.

Three countries (Canada, the United Kingdom and Australia), corresponding to the largest study recruitment, were chosen for calculation of unit costs.

For each country, the base, low and high estimates of unit cost for each service item were generated.

Extensive statistical and sensitivity analyses were performed.

What Was Measured

PubMed files the paper under topics including Australia, Canada, Dinoprostone, Premature Rupture of Fetal Membranes, Health Care Costs, Labor, Induced and Oxytocics.

What This Means in Plain Language

The paper is a randomized study of Oxytocin.

The abstract goes on to report its results in about 6 sentences; this page does not restate them, so read the paper for the findings and their limits.

The publication is from 1997 (CMAJ : Canadian Medical Association journal = journal de l'Association medicale canadienne), a journal based in Canada.

More context: the related Oxytocin library page, all human trials.