Benefits and cost of computerized tomography in radiation therapy
M. U. Goitein
The use of computerized tomography (CT) to guide the radiation therapy of
cancer has been shown in several studies to have a major impact on the
treatment process. The implications of these observations for the likely
outcome of treatment provide two indications of the cost-effectiveness of
CT in this application. First, the cost of CT relative to that of therapy
is compared with the estimated increment in benefit due to CT relative to
the benefit of therapy without CT. In this comparison, CT is found to be
cost-effective by a factor of 5.5. Second, the cost of CT is compared with
an estimate of the averge increased cost of treatment when initial therapy
has failed. This comparison favors CT by a factor of 4.6. These estimates
are conservative and do not take into account possible reductions in
morbidity for which CT may be responsible.
