Economic Evaluation of Positron Emission Tomography (PET) in Non Small Cell Lung Cancer (NSCLC), CHERE Working Paper 2007/6

Costs

All costs were adjusted for inflation and are in 2006 prices and can be seen in the table
below. It is not currently possible to differentiate FDG-PET scan costs from the National
Benefit Schedule or the National Hospital Data Collection and so a value was taken from the
Viney et al article with a value of AUD$2546.6.³⁵

Table 5: Unit Costs

The surgery costs were taken from the Australian National Hospital Cost Data
Collection with there being two relevant Diagnostic Related Groups (DRGs). The first is E01A
which is a major chest procedure with catastrophic clinical complexity (cc) and E01B a major
chest procedure without catastrophic cc. The distribution of the patients between the two
procedures was taken from the Viney et al article with approximately 62.5% of patients having
no catastrophic clinical complexity. The reimbursement rate for E01A was $AUD 21,727 and
for E01B was $AUD 18,176. This included a comprehensive cost ‘bucket’ for all relevant
associated costs for these procedures. It was assumed that the mediastinoscopy costs would
have been factored into the estimation of the DRGs for the chest surgery. Therefore, where a
mediastinoscopy was not performed the estimated cost of mediastinoscopy which was AUD$
2,466 was taken away from the surgery costs.³⁶

There were no estimates for Australian radiotherapy costs available for treating N2/3
disease. As a consequence an estimate for the radiotherapy cost of treating SCLC from the
literature was used. There is evidence that the radiotherapy costs for NSCLC and SCLC overall
are adequately close.³⁷ A value of $AUD 13,922 was used for the base case based on
Rosenthal study of the cost of SCLC for radiotherapy minus diagnosis costs and chemotherapy
38
costs.

³⁵ Viney, R. C., M. J. Boyer, et al. (2004). "Randomized controlled trial of the role of positron emission
tomography in the management of stage I and II non-small-cell lung cancer.[see comment]." Journal of Clinical
Oncology 22(12).

³⁶ Miles, K. A. (2001). "An approach to demonstrating cost-effectiveness of diagnostic imaging modalities in
Australia illustrated by positron emission tomography." Australas Radiol 45(1): 9-18.

³⁷ Fleming, I. Factors influencing hospital cost of lung cancer patients in Northern Ireland.

³⁸ Rosenthal, M. A., P. J. Webster, et al. (1992). "The cost of treating small cell lung cancer." Med J Aust 156(9):
605-10.

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