Objectives: The aim of this research is to evaluate the relative cost-effectiveness of functional and anatomical strategies for diagnosing stable coronary artery disease (CAD), using exercise (Ex)-ECG, stress echocardiogram (ECHO), single-photon emission CT (SPECT), coronary CT angiography (CTA) or stress cardiacmagnetic resonance (C-MRI).
Setting: Decision-analytical model, comparing strategies of sequential tests for evaluating patients with possible stable angina in low, intermediate and high pretest probability of CAD, from the perspective of a developing nation's public healthcare system.
Participants: Hypothetical cohort of patients with pretest probability of CAD between 20% and 70%.
Primary and secondary outcome measures: The primary outcome is cost per correct diagnosis of CAD. Proportion of false-positive or false-negative tests and number of unnecessary tests performed were also evaluated.
Results: Strategies using Ex-ECG as initial test were the least costly alternatives but generated more frequent false-positive initial tests and false-negative final diagnosis. Strategies based on CTA or ECHO as initial test were the most attractive and resulted in similar cost-effectiveness ratios (I$ 286 and I$ 305 per correct diagnosis, respectively). A strategy based on C-MRI was highly effective for diagnosing stable CAD, but its high cost resulted in unfavourable incremental cost-effectiveness (ICER) in moderate-risk and high-risk scenarios. Non-invasive strategies based on SPECT have been dominated.
Conclusions: An anatomical diagnostic strategy based on CTA is a cost-effective option for CAD diagnosis. Functional strategies performed equally well when based on ECHO. C-MRI yielded acceptable ICER only at low pretest probability, and SPECT was not cost-effective in our analysis.
Keywords: cardiovascular imaging; coronary disease; cost-benefit analysis; diagnosis.
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