Cost–Utility Analysis for Chest CT versus RT‑PCR for COVID‑19 Detection

COVID‑19 has become an important public health problem internationally in 2020. The disease caused problems in several countries around the world. The infection can result in febrile illness with a respiratory problem.[1] In our previous report, we have shown the limitation on the basic screening tool, temperature monitoring, for mass screening for people coming from risk areas.[2] In clinical practice in preventive medicine, adding to the screening for risk population, the early diagnosis on suspicious cases of COVID‑19 is similarly important. In general, common investigative tools include CT lung imaging and Reverse transcription polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR).[3] Fang et al. reported that the detections rates for initial chest CT and RT‑PCR for COVID‑19 detection among the clinically suspicious cases were equal to 98% and 71%, respectively.[3] Nevertheless, there is still no study on cost and utility of tools for diagnosis.