Interventions:
Both interventions were described clearly, including information on dosage. They appear to have represented current practice for the treatment of HBeAg-positive CHB in the authors' setting.
Effectiveness/benefits:
The effectiveness data were derived from a wide range of sources. While the authors reported that a thorough review of the clinical and health economics literature was conducted to identify appropriate estimates for the model, further details of the review were not provided; this makes it difficult to determine whether the best available evidence was used. However, the parameters used in the model were validated by a number of experts, which increases the likelihood that the best estimates were used for the setting. Details of the transition probabilities used in the model, along with their source, were fully reported in the paper and were subjected to one-way sensitivity analysis.
Costs:
The costs were presented as the total costs for the management of different health states, rather than separately as unit costs and resources, which reduces the possibility of replicating the analysis in other settings. However, the source of the resource use and unit cost data was relatively well reported. Details of the price year and discounting were reported.
Analysis and results:
The authors conducted an appropriate incremental analysis and reported the results clearly and in full. The impact of uncertainty in the model parameters was investigated through one-way sensitivity analysis which, although appropriate, could have been supplemented with two-way and probabilistic sensitivity analyses for a more complete assessment of the impact of uncertainty. The authors acknowledged several limitations of their analysis, which were mainly related to limitations in the data.
Concluding remarks:
The methodology of the study appears appropriate and was relatively well reported. However, the authors' conclusions did not adequately address uncertainty in the model.