Article

Report from the Diagnostic Imaging Clinical Committee - Nuclear Medicine (Now Closed)

 

Items reviewed

A total of 108 nuclear medicine MBS items were reviewed by the Diagnostic Imaging Clinical Committee, which included:

  • Cardiac nuclear medicine items
  • General nuclear medicine:
    • lung items – 61328, 61340, 61348
    • liver and spleen items—61352, 61353, 61356
    • hepatobiliary items—61360 and 61361
    • Indium-labelled octreotide study—61369
    • thallium studies—items 61437, 61438, 61458 and 61461
    • thyroid study—item 61473
    • Group T3—Therapeutic nuclear medicine items
    • Group D2 — Nuclear medicine non-imaging items
    • Positron emission tomography (PET) items
    • Interventional radiology procedures—Item 35404
    • Interventional radiology procedures—Item 35404 
    • Testicular study—item 61401
    • Brain study with blood brain barrier agent—item 61405
    • Cerebro-spinal fluid transport study—item 61409
    • Dynamic blood flow/regional blood volume quantity study—item 61417
    • Repeat planar and SPECT imaging, or repeat planar or SPECT imaging where the previous scan was abnormal or equivocal—item 61462
    • Parathyroid study—item 61480
    • Adrenal studies —items 61484, 61485
    • CT scan performed with SPECT for anatomic localisation/attenuation correction—item 61505

Proposed item changes:

Proposed changes

No. items

Change

49

No change

41

Delete

17

New item

2

New item for referral to MSAC

4

Report recommendations:

The Diagnostic Imaging Clinical Committee made a total of 22 recommendations. The significant recommendations are summarised as follows:

  • Cardiac items

    • To restructure and rationalise the nuclear medicine cardiac items,

    • by removing planar imaging items,

    • adding the fee for the exercise ECG item to relevant stress myocardial perfusion scan (MPS) items, and

    • creating separate items for rest imaging and stress imaging to remove any financial incentive to perform stress and rest studies over separate days.

  • MBS Positron Emission Tomography (PET) items 

    • Expand the indications (cancer types) for MBS PET services to include all fluorodeoxyglucose (FDG)avid solid tumours and

    • consolidate all MBS PET items into four items: covering diagnosis, staging, response assessment and recurrence (re-staging) for all FDG-avid tumours.

  • Therapeutic nuclear medicine items

    • recommending the transfer of funding for therapeutic radionuclides from the MBS to the Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme (PBS), increasing fees, pursuing listing of radium-223, and Australian registration of therapeutic nuclear medicine items on the clinical horizon.