摘要
目的:心脏影像学技术的进步导致检查数量激增和心血管保健费用的消耗比例升高。对运动超声心动图和SPECT成像机会成本的评价尚不完全。方法和结果:比较分析运动超声心动图(n=4884)和SPECT成像(n=4637)对稳定性中危胸痛患者的预后价值和成本效益。
Aims: Technological advances in cardiac imaging have led to dramatic increases in test utilization and consumption of a growing proportion of cardiovascular healthcare costs. The opportunity costs of strategies favouring exercise echocardiography or SPECT imaging have been incompletely evaluated. Methods and results: We examined prognosis and cost-effectiveness of exercise echocardiography (n=4884) vs. SPECT (n=4637) imaging in stable, intermediate risk, chest pain patients. Ischaemia extent was defined as the number of vascular territories with echocardiographic wall motion or SPECT perfusion abnormalities. Cox proportional hazard models were employed to assess time to cardiac death or myocardial infarction (MI). Total cardiovascular costs were summed (discounted and inflation-corrected) throughout follow-up. A cost-effectiveness ratio < ＄50 000 per life year saved (LYS) was considered favourable for economic efficiency. The risk-adjusted 3-year death or MI rates classified by extent of ischaemia were similar, ranging from 2.3 to 8.0%for echocardiography and from 3.5 to 11.0%for SPECT (model χ2=216; P< 0.0001; interaction P=0.24). Cost-effectiveness ratios for echocardiography were < ＄20 000/LYS when the annual risk of death or MI was < 2%. However, when yearly cardiac event rate were > 2%, cost-effectiveness ratios for echocardiography vs. SPECT were in the range of ＄66 686-＄419 522/LYS. For patients with established coronary disease (i.e. ≥2%annual event risk), SPECT ischaemia was associated with earlier and greater utilization of coronary revascularization (P < 0.0001) resulting in an incremental cost-effectiveness ratio of ＄32 381/LYS. Conclusion: Health care policies aimed at allocating limited resources can be effectively guided by applying clinical and economic outcomes evidence. A strategy aimed at cost-effective testing would support using echocardiographyin low-risk patientswith suspected coronary disease, whereas those higher risk patients benefit from referral to SPECT imaging.
