A Japanese Nationwide Survey on the FDG-PET Scans for Dementia: Analysis on the Predicted Costs and Benefits of FDG-PET for Early Diagnosis of Alzheimer

A nation-wide survey was carried out on theFDG-PETscans for the diagnosis of dementia by theFDG-PETWorking Group organized by both the Japan Radioisotope Association and the Japanese Society of Nuclear Medicine. A total of 406 case reports were presented by 15PETcenters for one year. The purpose of thePETscans included (A) early diagnosis of Alzheimer-type Dementia (154 cases) and (B) differential diagnosis of degenerative dementia (144 cases), which was achieved by the PET scan in most cases. ThePETscan turned out to allow omittingCBF-SPECTscans. Since donepezil treatment of theAl-zheimerpatients prevents the progress of the disease and reduces the care cost, an economic evaluation was performed on the two-year projected cost and benefit ofFDG-PET.The reduction of the total cost by incorporatingPETinto the protocol was predicted to be 61 500 yen (A) and 13 700 yen (B) per person. The increase of the Quality Adjusted Life Year (QALY) was predicted to be 0.0442 (A) and 0.0137 (B) . Therefore, incorporation ofPETinto the clinical pass was shown to be an economically dominant. As the number of potential subjects for early diagnosis of dementia is estimated to be 9000 across the country every year, PET is expected to increase their quality of life equivalent to 398 intact persons per year while reducing the cost of health care by 554 million yen.