Background: The diagnostic performance of 18F-sodium fluoride positron emission tomography/computed\ntomography (PET/CT) (NaF), 18F-fluorocholine PET/CT (FCH) and diffusion-weighted whole-body magnetic\nresonance imaging (DW-MRI) in detecting bone metastases in prostate cancer (PCa) patients with first biochemical\nrecurrence (BCR) has already been published, but their cost-effectiveness in this indication have never been\ncompared.\nMethods: We performed trial-based and model-based economic evaluations. In the trial, PCa patients with first BCR\nafter previous definitive treatment were prospectively included. Imaging readings were performed both on-site by\nlocal specialists and centrally by experts. The economic evaluation extrapolated the diagnostic performances of the\nimaging techniques using a combination of a decision tree and Markov model based on the natural history of PCa.\nThe health states were non-metastatic and metastatic BCR, non-metastatic and metastatic castration-resistant\nprostate cancer and death. The state-transition probabilities and utilities associated with each health state were\nderived from the literature. Real costs were extracted from the National Cost Study of hospital costs and the social\nhealth insurance cost schedule.\nResults: There was no significant difference in diagnostic performance among the 3 imaging modalities in\ndetecting bone metastases. FCH was the most cost-effective imaging modality above a threshold incremental costeffectiveness\nratio of.................
Loading....