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Economic potential of abbreviated breast MRI for screening women with dense breast tissue for breast cancer

Tollens F, Baltzer PAT, Dietzel M, Schnitzer ML, Schwarze V, Kunz WG, Rink J, Ruebenthaler J, Froelich MF, Schoenberg SO, Kaiser CG (2022)

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Publication Type: Journal article

Publication year: 2022

Journal

DOI: 10.1007/s00330-022-08777-5

Abstract

Objectives Abbreviated breast MRI (AB-MRI) was introduced to reduce both examination and image reading times and to improve cost-effectiveness of breast cancer screening. The aim of this model-based economic study was to analyze the cost-effectiveness of full protocol breast MRI (FB-MRI) vs. AB-MRI in screening women with dense breast tissue for breast cancer. Methods Decision analysis and a Markov model were designed to model the cumulative costs and effects of biennial screening in terms of quality-adjusted life years (QALYs) from a US healthcare system perspective. Model input parameters for a cohort of women with dense breast tissue were adopted from recent literature. The impact of varying AB-MRI costs per examination as well as specificity on the resulting cost-effectiveness was modeled within deterministic sensitivity analyses. Results At an assumed cost per examination of $ 263 for AB-MRI (84% of the cost of a FB-MRI examination), the discounted cumulative costs of both MR-based strategies accounted comparably. Reducing the costs of AB-MRI below $ 259 (82% of the cost of a FB-MRI examination, respectively), the incremental cost-effectiveness ratio of FB-MRI exceeded the willingness to pay threshold and the AB-MRI-strategy should be considered preferable in terms of cost-effectiveness. Conclusions Our preliminary findings indicate that AB-MRI may be considered cost-effective compared to FB-MRI for screening women with dense breast tissue for breast cancer, as long as the costs per examination do not exceed 82% of the cost of a FB-MRI examination.

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How to cite

APA:

Tollens, F., Baltzer, P.A.T., Dietzel, M., Schnitzer, M.L., Schwarze, V., Kunz, W.G.,... Kaiser, C.G. (2022). Economic potential of abbreviated breast MRI for screening women with dense breast tissue for breast cancer. European Radiology. https://doi.org/10.1007/s00330-022-08777-5

MLA:

Tollens, Fabian, et al. "Economic potential of abbreviated breast MRI for screening women with dense breast tissue for breast cancer." European Radiology (2022).

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