European radiology
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Multicenter Study
Patient preferences for whole-body MRI or conventional staging pathways in lung and colorectal cancer: a discrete choice experiment.
To determine the importance placed by patients on attributes associated with whole-body MRI (WB-MRI) and standard cancer staging pathways and ascertain drivers of preference. ⋯ • WB-MRI staging pathways are preferred to standard pathways by the majority of patients provided they at least match standard staging pathways for accuracy, total scan number, and time to diagnosis. • For patients with lung cancer, time to diagnosis was the attribute valued most highly, followed by accuracy, radiation dose, number of additional scans, and time in a scanner. Preference for patients with colorectal cancer was similar. • Most (63%) patients were willing to trade attributes, such as faster diagnosis, for improvements in pathway accuracy and reduced radiation exposure.