Cost-Effectiveness of Digital Breast Tomosynthesis vs. Abbreviated Breast MRI for Screening Women with Intermediate Risk of Breast Cancer—How Low-Cost Must MRI Be?

SIMPLE SUMMARY: Women with dense breasts have an increased risk of breast cancer and a smaller likelihood of detection in conventional mammographic screening. It is an ongoing challenge of breast imaging techniques to increase sensitivity in dense breasts. Tomosynthesis, as well as abbreviated breast MR, intends to close the gap between optimal cancer detection rate and cost-effectiveness. The aim of this economic evaluation was to analyse the cost-effectiveness of these two imaging techniques in screening women of intermediate risk of breast cancer due to dense breasts. The model-based analysis revealed that abbreviated breast MRI can be considered cost-effective, being below the willingness to pay-threshold of $100,000 per quality-adjusted life-year gained. ABSTRACT: Background: Digital breast tomosynthesis (DBT) and abbreviated breast MRI (AB-MRI) offer superior diagnostic performance compared to conventional mammography in screening women with intermediate risk of breast cancer due to dense breast tissue. The aim of this model-based economic evaluation was to analyze whether AB-MRI is cost-effective in this cohort compared to DBT. Methods: Decision analysis and Markov simulations were used to model the cumulative costs and quality-adjusted life-years (QALYs) over a time horizon of 30 years. Model input parameters were adopted from recent literature. Deterministic and probabilistic sensitivity analyses were applied to test the stability of the model. Results: In the base-case scenario, the costs of an AB-MRI examination were defined to equal the costs of a full protocol acquisition. Two-yearly screening of women with dense breasts resulted in cumulative discounted costs of $8798 and $9505 for DBT and AB-MRI, and cumulative discounted effects of 19.23 and 19.27 QALYs, respectively, with an incremental cost-effectiveness ratio of $20,807 per QALY gained in the base-case scenario. By reducing the cost of an AB-MRI examination below a threshold of $241 in sensitivity analyses, AB-MRI would become cost-saving compared to DBT. Conclusion: In comparison to DBT, AB-MRI can be considered cost-effective up to a price per examination of $593 in screening patients at intermediate risk of breast cancer.