In Japan, preventive health services have been heavily concentrated in mass screening. This prioritization is also true in the field of school health. Annual mass health screenings have been provided to 21.3 million children from kindergarten to university level under the School Health Law. In 1973, periodic health examinations were extended to include screenings for renal and heart diseases. This extensive screening program has been introduced without any evidence supporting its effectiveness. Although available data relative to these screenings in Japan were examined, neither the efficacy of the tests nor the effectiveness of the screenings were observed. Moreover, costs for the tests during the initial phase amounted to US $120 million and $65 million, respectively.

If intensive care is defined as close observation of critically ill persons, then its use is ancient indeed, going back to the beginning of recorded history. But if intensive care is defined to include all the modern technology, techniques, knowledge, and skilled personnel that closely monitor patients with the intent to intervene when potentially dangerous changes in physiology occur, usually in acute, life-threatening circumstances, then real medical intensive care services are only slightly more than three decades old.

The Swedish routine program for antenatal care is based on a number of scheduled visits for the detection of symptomless complications, as well as psychosocial support and health education. The scientific evidence to support the present timing and contents of routine visits is unsatisfactory, and there is a great need for evaluation both of single diagnostic procedures and interventions and of programs of antenatal care.

The Orphan Drug Act of 1983, along with the discovery of a new use for a known drug and an investor willing to assume the necessary risk, brought about the formation of a start-up pharmaceutical company. The primary incentive of the Orphan Drug Act of seven years of marketing exclusivity provided the protection from competition necessary for recovery of the significant research and development and marketing costs. The orphan product, MetroGel®, for the treatment of rosacea, required approximately five years of development before it was approved for marketing by the Food and Drug Administration. MetroGel® has become the number one drug in the United States for the treatment of rosacea. It currently is marketed in other countries through a licensing agreement with a major pharmaceutical company.

The intensive care unit (ICU), one of the great achievements of modern medicine, is both a set of technologies and a space with a special function. This essay traces the evolution of the ICU's crucial technologies, and how the space bearing this name was carved out in the hospital. Ethical, legal, and social developments, an important part of this story, are incorporated in it.

Based on an American multicenter study, an economic evaluation of prophylactic misoprostol was undertaken in Sweden. The study included 420 patients with osteoarthritis and nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drug (NSAID)-associated abdominal pain, but no gastric ulcer at inclusion. The frequency of ulcer development with and without prophylactic misoprostol was assessed at 21.7% and 5.6%, respectively, for a 3-month period. All costs for drugs, ambulatory care, hospital care, loss of production, as well as other factors such as dosage and compliance, were transferred to Swedish conditions. It was concluded that in patients with osteoarthritis and NSAID-induced abdominal pain, prophylaxis with misoprostol is cost-effective in Sweden, which is similar to what is found for other countries. A prerequisite for this result is a frequency of ulcer development of 15%. A patient compliance to prophylactic treatment of more than 60% is also presupposed (79% was observed in the above study). Due to the high age of the osteoarthritis patient population, the cost-effectiveness is influenced to only a minor extent by whether indirect costs are included in the calculation.

A survey of 200 physicians explored the relationship between their beliefs in the efficacy of physical therapy (PT) and their use of PT for their patients with cerebral palsy (CP). Results show that utilization of PT is related to physicians' use of PT in general and is inversely related to the percentage of CP in physicians' patient loads, but is not related to their opinions of the value of PT services.

In Britain, antenatal care is performed by specialist obstetricians, general practitioners (GPs), and midwives, often in combination. Because most women are delivered in specialist hospitals, obstetricians are involved in booking for place of delivery, and usually in delivery of specialized investigations such as ultrasonic scanning. General practitioners may independently book women for confinement under their care in Cottage Hospitals or (rarely) at home, and may provide all the medical care for those women, in addition to sharing in the antenatal care of women to be delivered at specialist units, and in fact doing most of the care for these women, unless they are very high risk or complicated.

The 1983 Orphan Drug Act was designed in response to market and regulatory disincentives that limited industrial interest in developing drugs needed by people in the United States with rare diseases and conditions. These disincentives evolved from changes in the pharmaceutical industry and in regulatory testing requirements. In the eight years since the Act and subsequent amendments have been in effect, the law has been associated with the new development and approval of 40 marketed drugs and 12 biologicals to treat rare (orphan) diseases. An additional 281 drugs and 141 biologicals have been entered into development and designated as orphans. Finally, the law has mandated exploration of whether the incentives of the Act are necessary and appropriate for stimulating industrial development of orphan medical drugs and devices. Despite this progress, controversies have arisen over three profitable orphan products that have benefited from the law's provisions. This has created the need for continued assessment of the Act's benefits and costs.

It is difficult to study the epidemiology of ICUs, as they lack a uniform nomenclature and/or classification. The organization and distribution of intensive care medicine depend on the size and function of the hospital. The patients in ICUs are predominantly men, with a high proportion of elderly patients (≥70 years) constituting 25–30% of the total. Case-mix, severity of illness and outcome differ from one unit to another, and can be compared only if the patients are classified with a common classification system. Most survivors of intensive care seem to return to normal or near normal functional level within one year. Compared to Western Europe, the United States has more ICU beds and a nearly ten times higher admission rate to intensive care. These variations can be seen as a result of a fundamental difference in the attitudes toward withdrawing or withholding life support.

The effectiveness of screening to control lung cancer was examined in the German Democratic Republic by analyzing data from a cancer registry and incidence and mortality rates for lung cancer relative to different screening policies, and by two case-control studies. Mortality from lung cancer did not appear to be affected by the screening programs studied. The high cost of mass screening, combined with uncertainty about the benefits of early treatment of lung cancer, outweigh the vague advantages of such screening.

The greatest problem concerning health care technology for developing countries is that they are dependent upon the industrialized world for technology. The only short-term solution to this problem is to improve the choices that are available to them. This goal will require changes in the structure and processes of policy making. A particular difficulty for these countries is the lack of trained personnel in fields related to technology assessment.

The FDA recently approved Ceredase™, a new treatment for Gaucher's disease, under the provisions of the Orphan Drug Act. Ceredase™ is unusually expensive, but there are no satisfactory alternative therapies. It appears likely that Ceredase™would not have become available without the protection of the Orphan Drug Act, but its expense and the lack of information about its long-term effects on health raise questions about whether the ODA provides appropriate incentives to develop cost-effective technologies.

Antenatal care was established in Norway during the 1930s. Unlike the other Nordic countries, care is provided by general practitioners, not be midwives. Guidelines were first issued in 1984 after a debate about the quality of the care. This article reports providers' compliance to important parts of the guidelines.

Any evaluation of intensive care must include an ethical assessment of that technology. This allows us to consider the use of technologyin light of the ends that we desire. The most pressing ethical issues in intensive care are: forgoing life-sustaining treatment, dehumanization of patients and staff within the technological environment, and the allocation of the technology that is integral to intensive care.

When planning for health services, questions of production and distribution as well as cost and quality are key issues for health planners and decision makers. The lack of available objective data often makes this work difficult. This paper presents recent efforts in Finland to improve the collection of information needed for planning in the field of physiotherapy.