Health economics series

The need for effective use of limited resources extends to all aspects of medicine and public health. Physicians and public health officials have always been concerned with prudent use of resources, and make decisions that implicitly take into account not only the effectiveness but also the cost involved. Cost-effectiveness analysis is a valuable tool in making these decisions both more explicit and scientifically based. Partly because of methodological difficulties, such analysis has been used less frequently for diagnostic tests and procedures. In this paper, we describe essential elements of economic analyses of diagnostic technologies using two examples—use of magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) in the assessment of individuals with non-specific neurological symptoms and diagnostic testing for Helicobacter pylori. The similarities and differences emphasise the diversity of approaches and the applicability of health economics to clinical and healthcare policy. Clinical examples