All reports

KCE Reports 314 (2019) Under the insurance Law of 4 April 2014 a  “monitoring office for insurance premiums’ was established. Its mission is to examine proposals for premium supplements or refusals by insurances that guarantee the repayment of the capital of a credit (Art. 217). Article 218 of this law provides that KCE conducts a study to assess whether the premiums charged by the insurers are in line with the evolution of medical techniques and health care, with regard to the main pathologies concerned.

KCE Reports 316 (2019)  

KCE Reports 315 (2019)  

KCE Reports 313 (2019)  

KCE Reports 312 (2019)

KCE Reports 311 (2019)  

KCE Reports 310 (2019)  

KCE Reports 309 (2019)  

KCE Reports 304 (2018) It is estimated that nearly 400,000 people in our country suffer from incontinence of varying degrees. Approximately one-quarter of these persons receive an annual lump sum from INAMI, based on certain conditions.

KCE Reports 308 (2019) The vaccine for the human papilloma virus (HPV) which causes cervical cancer was introduced about ten years ago in Belgium, but only girls benefit from it. However, it is now established that this same virus is also involved in other cancers, including throat cancer. The recommendations have thus been reviewed and here, as in most western countries, it is now recommended to vaccinate boys too.

KCE Reports 307 (2019) Proton therapy is a radiation therapy technique which allows large doses of radiation to be delivered to cancerous tumours without (excessively) “overflowing” to adjacent tissues. There has been much talk of this technique in recent years, since two projects by proton therapy centres are ongoing in Belgium, one in Louvain and the other in Charleroi.

KCE Reports 306 (2019) A healthy lifestyle remains the most effective way of avoiding cardiovascular diseases and their consequences. Yet since 2002, the annual number of people who use cholesterol-lowering drugs from the statin family increased from 400,000 to 1,500,000. Currently, 25% of the population aged 40 and above take these drugs. Despite decreases in price due to the fact that all statins now exist in generic form, their total cost still stands at 160 million euros annually.

KCE Reports 305 (2019) For several years, KCE has undertaken background work to improve the quality of care to patients with cancer, together with the Cancer Registry Foundation and College of Oncology. Over time, this project should lead to a true system of quality monitoring, including clinical recommendations, quality indicators and a hospital benchmarking and feedback dynamic. This year, efforts have concentrated on head and neck cancers.

KCE Reports 303 (2018) Satisfaction questionnaires are increasingly used everywhere and hospitals are not immune to this trend.

KCE Reports 302 (2018) Hospital financial reform stipulates that hospital stays be divided into three “clusters” based on the variability of care, with each cluster benefiting from a different form of financing.

KCE Reports 301 (2018) Children and adults have their specific networks for mental healthcare but what about elderly people? Is it necessary to organise their care in a separate network or can it be integrated into the “adult” healthcare system? To this question we have responded that the chronological age should not be a decisive criterion, because some “elderly” people are in top shape, active and independent, while others are very fragile and dependent. Thus the current network of adult care needs to be broadened to include the population’s higher age groups.

KCE Reports 300 (2018) The sequencing of the entire genome is a new form of genetic testing which, instead of targeting certain isolated genes, decodes all of an individual’s genes all at once (= his or her genome). This technology is advancing rapidly and its costs are decreasing, which suggests that it could soon displace conventional testing. This is not without a certain number of problems which are ethical (because geneticists will be faced with information they did not request) and also organisational and financial in nature.

KCE Reports 299 (2018) Agreements with the National Institute for Health and Disability Insurance (NIHDI) are a means of financing care which primarily applies to multidisciplinary care, particularly in the rehabilitation sector. There are currently 34 of them; they encompass a varied array of services and concern a large range of chronic and/or complex problems: diabetes, dementia, respiratory disease, rare metabolic diseases, genital mutilation, etc. At the request of NIHDI, we developed a method allowing their quality and effectiveness to be evaluated (and possibly improved).

KCE Report 298 (2018) Breast cancer is the most commonly diagnosed cancer in women in Belgium and throughout the world. Provided this cancer is in the early stage, treatment is essentially locoregional, that is, via surgery alone or combined with radiation therapy. In theory, this treatment is enough to eradicate the tumour since it is still limited. However, it is known that about 30% of patients treated in this way are at risk of developing remote metastases, because metastatic cancerous cells are already present but undetectable at the time of diagnosis.

KCE Reports 297 (2018) 3D printing is generating increased interest in the medical sector, namely in orthopaedics and dentistry, but there is no evidence that 3D-printed implants are as effective or safe as “classical” products. Yet they can currently be used without restrictions by doctors, even when they are “at high risk” (that is, more often than not, implantable).