The scientific interest (SI) in nuclear medicine procedures (NMP) as predictive of clinical use

Objectives Health care planning demands that use of medical technology should be based on scientific evidence. The main objective of this study is to analyze the correlation between SI in NMP and their use in clinical practice (CP). We hypothesized that use of NMP closely follow the SI in them and thus the latter could be predictive of the former.

Methods The data on the use of 6 NMP (lung, renal, cardiac, thyroid, brain and bone scintigraphies) in USA was derived from a previous paper published in the Seminars in Nuclear Medicine (38:384-391). SI in NMP was assessed as the number of articles published in MEDLINE. The Pearson’s correlation (PC) between these two datasets was analyzed at three dates (1973, 1982 and 2005).

Results PCs for the 1973, 1982 and 2005 years were, respectively: 0.28 (p>0.05), 0.55 (p>0.05) and 0.99 (p<0.01). The low PC observed in 1973 seems to be due to a high clinical use of brain (57%) and thyroid (17%) procedures not accompanied by SI (22% and 2%, respectively) - when both procedures were withdrawn from analysis the PC jumped to 1 (p<0.01). Interestingly, in the 1982 analysis, the proportional use of these two NMP decreased. In 1982, the non significance of the PC seemed attributable to a high SI in cardiac procedures unbalanced with their limited clinical use. At that time, cardiac procedures were the main SI (43%) issue but ranked only third in CP (17%). The withdrawal of cardiac procedures increases the PC to 0.87 (p = 0.05). In 2005, the cardiac scintigraphies were the first NMP in CP (67%) and SI (53%).

Conclusions The clinical use of NMP seems to follow the SI in them and there seems to be a strong correlation between these two aspects of science and technology after a period of time.