Comment on “Appropriate use criteria for transthoracic echocardiography at a tertiary care center”Comment on “Appropriate use criteria for transthoracic echocardiography at a tertiary care center”

In the last ten years there have been considerable improvements in imaging techniques in various areas and in cardiovascular imaging in particular.These advances have made diagnosis easier, but have also led to a dramatic increase in the use of diagnostic exams and hence a significant increase in health costs.In the USA, Medicare spending on diagnostic tests more than doubled between 2000 and 2006, while expenditure in the area of cardiology rose from $1.6 billion to $5.1 billion in 2006.1,2 These figures are giving rise to increasing concerns about the economic implications of this exponential growth, which will rapidly become financially and socially unsustainable.Reviews in the field of health economics show that the use of computed tomography (CT) increased three-fold, magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) four-fold and ultrasound imaging by 70% between 1996 and 2010, while nuclear medicine studies decreased by a third from 2008 onward, possibly due to the increasing popularity of other techniques such as coronary CT angiography.3 The explosion in costs between 2000 and 2006 and its economic impact have been the subject of several studies that sought to determine the reasons behind this situation and to try and find a solution.234ଝ Please cite this article as: Galrinho A. Comentário a critérios de adequac ¸ão para ecocardiografia transtorácica num centro terciário.