COMMENTARY

Swedes Show That We Can Improve Imaging in Prostate Cancer

Gerald Chodak, MD

August 19, 2013

This feature requires the newest version of Flash. You can download it here.

Giving Physicians Feedback on Imaging Use

Hello. I am Dr. Gerald Chodak for Medscape. This week's topic focuses on ways to improve the quality of care of men diagnosed with prostate cancer. In the Journal of the National Cancer Institute, Makarov and coworkers^[1] reported a retrospective analysis of more than 100,000 men from Sweden. Starting in 1998, the Swedish government implemented a program to let doctors know regionally and in their hospitals who was ordering tests and imaging studies inappropriately. They made a conscious effort to define men with low-risk prostate cancer who did not need imaging studies as part of their workup. The men were followed, and each year at meetings and through other ways of disseminating information, doctors were updated on how the men were doing.

The results were interesting. They showed that over time there was a reduction from 43% to 3% in the number of men with low-risk disease (a Gleason score of 6 or lower, prostate-specific antigen level < 10 ng/mL, and clinical T1 disease) who received an inappropriate scan. This implementation had a positive effect in lowering the misuse of tests. Unfortunately, there was also about a 15% drop in the proper use of scanning for men with high-risk disease, and it is unclear why that occurred.

References

1 2

Next Section

Cite this: Swedes Show That We Can Improve Imaging in Prostate Cancer - Medscape - Aug 19, 2013.

Comments

Commenting is limited to medical professionals. To comment please Log-in.

Comments on Medscape are moderated and should be professional in tone and on topic. You must declare any conflicts of interest related to your comments and responses. Please see our Commenting Guide for further information. We reserve the right to remove posts at our sole discretion.