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Cost-effectiveness of cardiovascular imaging for stable coronary heart disease
Walker, S., Cox, E., Rothwell, B., Berry, C., McCann, G. P., Bucciarelli-Ducci, C., Dall'Armellina, E., Prasad, A., Foley, J. R. J., Mangion, K., Bijsterveld, P., Everett, C., Stocken, D., Plein, S., Greenwood, J. P., & Sculpher, M. (2021). Cost-effectiveness of cardiovascular imaging for stable coronary heart disease. Heart, 107(5), 381-388. https://doi.org/10.1136/heartjnl-2020-316990
OBJECTIVE: To assess the cost-effectiveness of management strategies for patients presenting with chest pain and suspected coronary heart disease (CHD): (1) cardiovascular magnetic resonance (CMR); (2) myocardial perfusion scintigraphy (MPS); and (3) UK National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) guideline-guided care.
METHODS: Using UK data for 1202 patients from the Clinical Evaluation of Magnetic Resonance Imaging in Coronary Heart Disease 2 trial, we conducted an economic evaluation to assess the cost-effectiveness of CMR, MPS and NICE guidelines. Health outcomes were expressed as quality-adjusted life-years (QALYs), and costs reflected UK pound sterling in 2016-2017. Cost-effectiveness results were presented as incremental cost-effectiveness ratios and incremental net health benefits overall and for low, medium and high pretest likelihood of CHD subgroups.
RESULTS: CMR had the highest estimated QALY gain overall (2.21 (95% credible interval 2.15, 2.26) compared with 2.07 (1.92, 2.20) for NICE and 2.11 (2.01, 2.22) for MPS) and incurred comparable costs (overall £1625 (£1431, £1824) compared with £1753 (£1473, £2032) for NICE and £1768 (£1572, £1989) for MPS). Overall, CMR was the cost-effective strategy, being the dominant strategy (more effective, less costly) with incremental net health benefits per patient of 0.146 QALYs (-0.18, 0.406) compared with NICE guidelines at a cost-effectiveness threshold of £15 000 per QALY (93% probability of cost-effectiveness). Results were similar in the pretest likelihood subgroups.
CONCLUSIONS: CMR-guided care is cost-effective overall and across all pretest likelihood subgroups, compared with MPS and NICE guidelines.