Intraprocedural contrastenhanced ultrasound CEUS

Authors: Giovanni Mauri Emanuele Porazzi Luca Cova Umberto Restelli Tania Tondolo Marzia Bonfanti Anna Cerri Tiziana Ierace Davide Croce Luigi Solbiati

Publish Date: 2014/02/22

Volume: 5, Issue: 2, Pages: 209-216

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Abstract

One hundred and fortyeight hepatocellular carcinomas in 93 patients were treated by percutaneous radiofrequency ablation and immediate assessment by intraprocedural CEUS Clinical impact cost effectiveness and budget organisational and equity impacts were evaluated and compared with standard treatment without intraprocedural CEUS using the health technology assessment approachIntraprocedural CEUS detected incomplete ablation in 34/93 365  patients who underwent additional treatment during the same session At 24h complete ablation was found in 88/93 946  patients Thus a second session of treatment was spared in 29/93 311  patients Costeffectiveness analysis revealed an advantage for the use of intraprocedural CEUS in comparison with standard treatment 4639 vs 6592 with a 219  reduction of the costs to treat the whole sample Cost per patient for complete treatment was € 4609 versus € 5872 respectively The introduction of intraprocedural CEUS resulted in a low organisational impact and in a positive impact on equity

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