Speaker
Description
Objective
Economic evidence on modern radiotherapy has not kept pace with its technological development and remains heterogeneous in design, costing method and treatment of uncertainty. This systematic mapping review catalogues the peer-reviewed economic evaluations of modern radiotherapy, classifies their methodological choices and identifies decision-relevant gaps. It informs the early economic evaluation of upright radiotherapy undertaken within UPLIFT.
Methods
Five databases (PubMed, Embase, Scopus, Web of Science, EconLit) were searched from 2005 to February 2026; records were deduplicated and are screened in duplicate, and reporting follows PRISMA-ScR. Eligible studies evaluate IMRT, VMAT, SBRT/SRS, proton, carbon ion or MR/CT-guided adaptive radiotherapy as the decision-relevant technology, and comprise full and partial evaluations and budget impact analyses. A 54-field grid records design, perspective, time horizon, discounting, costing method, health-state utility derivation and uncertainty handling. Reporting quality, risk of bias and uncertainty are appraised separately (CHEERS 2022, ECOBIAS, TRUST), without a composite score.
Results
The protocol was registered on 9 February 2026 and amended on 11 February 2026, when Web of Science Core Collection was added to the databases searched. A second amendment on 10 July 2026, following peer review at BMJ Open, harmonised the economic evaluation taxonomy, removed currency standardisation and added PRISMA-P reporting. As of 31 August 2026 the first reviewer had screened all 6,883 deduplicated records, while screening by the second reviewer was ongoing. Results will be presented at the 2nd UPLIFT School.
Outlook & Discussion
This systematic mapping review will provide an overview of the methods and findings published in the peer-reviewed literature on economic evaluations of modern radiotherapy. By cataloguing the methodological choices made in the included studies, namely the type of economic evaluation, model structure, costing approach, utility measurement and the handling of uncertainty, it will identify the approaches most commonly adopted in radiotherapy and those that remain unused. The review forms Chapter 1 of the thesis and informs the health-economic model of upright radiotherapy currently being developed in AnyLogic, which constitutes Chapter 2.