Table 1.
Current unit costs in Belgium (2012), expressed in Euros.
Table 2.
Parameter distributions for probabilistic uncertainty analysis.
Figure 1.
The evolution of the patients is divided into two groups. In Group 1, patients were examined by dermatologists adequately trained in optical dermoscopy (OD). In Group 2, patients were examined by dermatologists adequately trained in optical dermoscopy and who had access to sequential digital dermoscopy imaging (SDDI).
Figure 2.
Observed total direct extra-costs distributed in the decision-tree model.
This figure shows the observed total direct extra-costs distributed in a decision tree model. In Group 1, patients were examined by dermatologists adequately trained in optical dermoscopy (OD). In Group 2, patients were examined by dermatologists adequately trained in optical dermoscopy and who had access to sequential digital dermoscopy imaging (SDDI). *Melanoma excision costs are not taken into account because these should be the same for each correctly diagnosed melanoma, irrespective of which group they belonged to.
Figure 3.
Histogram of the estimated extra costs of sequential digital dermoscopy imaging versus optical dermoscopy.
The extra-costs are defined as the costs of excision and pathology of benign lesions and/or the costs of follow-up by sequential digital dermoscopy imaging. These extra-costs are divided by the number of melanomas diagnosed in each group.
Figure 4.
Sensitivity analysis: tornado graph.
Mela OD: number of excised melanomas in the optical dermoscopy (OD) group; Mela SDDI: number of excised melanomas in the sequential digital dermoscopy imaging (SDDI) group; P unnec ex OD: number of patients with unnecessary excisions in OD group; P unnec ex SDDI: number of patients with unnecessary excisions in SDDI group; P ctrl T0: number of patients registered by SDDI at inclusion time; P ctrl 12 M: proportion of patients followed-up by SDDI at 12 months; N unnec ex: average number of unnecessary excisions per patient; Multi unnec ex: proportion of patients with >1 unnecessary excision.
Table 3.
Simulated costs of excision, pathology and/or follow-up of benign lesions, expressed in Euros (mean+95% credibility interval).