Placebo-trials on HIV-infected pregnant women in developing countries like Thailand and Uganda have provoked recent controversy. Such experiments aim to find a treatment that will cut the rate of vertical transmission more efficiently than existing ‘gold standard’ treatments like zidovudine. This article is available only as a PDF. Please click...

Firstly may I thank the Academy of Medicine and the Chapter of Surgeons for giving me this great privilege and honour to deliver the final lecture of the century for our series of Chapter of Surgeons lectures to close the 20th century and begin a new dawn in the...

Health-related quality of life (HRQoL) refers to patients’ perceptions of their own functioning and well-being. HRQoL is increasingly being used as a primary or secondary endpoint in clinical research and is essential in economic evaluation of new and often expensive therapies. This article is available only as a PDF. Please...

Assessment can be done in a variety of ways, for many purposes, and for different populations. It can occur at the classroom level, programme level, college level or even national level. This article is available only as a PDF. Please click on “Download PDF” on top to view the full...

The EQ-5D is a widely used preference-based instrument (available in at least 60 language versions and used in more than 800 published studies to date1 ) that provides both a health profile (for assessing health status) and health utility index for individuals or groups, thus allowing clinical and economic...

With increasing life expectancy and low fertility rates, the proportion of the elderly is rapidly increasing in developed nations, Singapore being no exception. The elderly (over 65 years) population in Singapore is expected to grow from 7.2% in 2000 to 18.4% by 2030. This article is available only as a...