PSMA-PET scan cost why?

Hello Sprinter .

As you say, the technology and staff are in place to administer it. My thoughts are that the difficulty is the availability of the tracer which has to be specially prepared for each patient based on their weight and only a limited number of places have the capability to do this at the moment. Also it has a short shelf life so they cannot produce it on a batch basis. Reading and interpretation of the results needs training in order to minimise over treatment due to false positives which are becoming more apparent as they get a better understanding of the technology. 

Hi Sprinter that’s a very good question and I will attempt to answer it.  You are quite right that effectively it is completely free once the machine is in situ and the staff are recruited and trained.  However, in order to understand the cost in relation to other treatments, an attempt is made (with all treatments) to devise a relative cost.  If you look at the price of a new scanner around £10m say and then it is used by 4000 patients in its life, the machine cost would be £2,500 per go.  Obviously, you can play about with the figures and getting 8,000 patients would halve the nominal cost but you hopefully see that the hardware is likely to be a major part of the cost.  In addition, the wages are obviously not free and nor is training on new equipment, possibly building costs, and even down to electricity, plus the isotope production as AH has mentioned.  Private companies will obviously factor in a profit factor as well, so you can see how it all adds up.  I am sure there are others who can explain the Cost Accounting process much better than my ramblings, but hope that helped.  David

As for paying for it

this is totally down to either

1.not being prepared to wait until the NHS can provide an appointment or 

2. Wishing to have it whilst the NHS does not consider it to be required or not cost effective