The economic impact of MR imaging : A useful quality tool for diagnosis of ovarian diseases.

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There is a demand for validation of the benefits of medical practices and a weighting of their benefits against their costs. Partly in response to these pressures, considerable recent activity has been devoted to the development of measures appropriate for evaluating the impact of various medical technologies on patient health outcomes and the cost of medical care. However, these efforts largely have focused on therapeutic technologies and medical organizational systems. Little such research has been directed toward diagnostic technologies, including diagnostic imaging technologies, which are among the most prominent in their potential for affecting care and cost. The purpose of this project was to evaluate the impact of MR imaging on decisions about treatment of patients with clinically diagnosed pelvic endometriosis. I investigated to generalize about the usefulness of the correct diagnostic technique in eliminating unnecessary costs.MR imaging of the pelvis affects the overall cost of diagnosis and treatment of endometriosis by reducing the number of unnecessary surgical procedure. With pelvic MR imaging, the origin of an adnexal mass can be differentiated reliably, even when other imaging findings are equivocal, a further contribution to the elimination of unnecessary surgery. When MR imaging was done in all patients with suspected endometriosis before laparoscopy, an overall net saving of 770460 yen or 22013 yen per patient.In patients with suspected ovarian diseases, the use of pelvic MR imaging decreased the number of invasive surgical procedures and reduced total health care costs. QALY (quality adjusted life expectancy years) in addition of MR imaging showed an increase of 0.15 over those of conventional technique only.