Economic evaluation studies in nuclear medicine: a methodological review of the literature

The growing need for evaluation of the utility of new nuclear medicine technologies has spawned a few economic studies ranging from preliminary indications of cost savings to complete decision analysis models incorporating costs and quality of life. The objective of the current study was to evaluate the methodological quality of economic analyses of nuclear medicine procedures which targeted cost-effectiveness or cost-utility issues published in the medical literature during the years 1985-1999.

A computerized literature search was used to identify original investigations from the medical literature which included an economic analysis of a nuclear medicine procedure. Each economic analysis article was evaluated by two independent reviewers for adherence to ten accepted methodological criteria.

Of the 29 articles meeting the search criteria, only six (21%) conformed to all ten methodological criteria.

Published economic analyses of nuclear medicine procedures usually do not meet accepted methodological standards and could be significantly improved to achieve overall better quality relative to similar analyses in the literature from other medical fields. Continued improvement in the number and quality of economic studies is critically needed for the future competitiveness of nuclear medicine studies.