[The cost of imaging in oncology practice]

The purpose of this work was to assess the part of radiology in the total cost of cancer in France. Lot of public and private organisms are in charge to assess the total health cost and their informations are easy to obtain. But there are some obstacles to focus on radiological cancer cost: radiology is performed in various places: private outpatient care practice, private and public hospitals; for same examination, cost varies according on the place were it's performed; we can assess the imaging cost in anticancer centers, but the costs of radiological examinations realised for cancer indications in general hospital are not separated from the cost of those performed for other indications; a same patient can migrate between private and public radiological structures for the same cancer, and we are not able to know the relative cost of each part or the total cost. In summary, we can assess the total cost of private radiology but not the cancer part of this cost. For public structures, we can assess the imaging department cost. Nevertheless this cost is independent of the number of examinations performed, so the paradox is: a same exploration has a different cost according on the place where it's realised. So, we need to create a tool which will permit to obtain a medical assessment of imaging cost. The FNMR (Fédération Nationale des médecins radiologues) try to produce such tool with the OPIM (Observatoire pour l'imagerie). It seems important than public radiologists think about it.