The non-invasive vascular laboratory: who needs it?

This paper attempts to answer the following four questions: Why test? What tests? Whom to test? and What costs? The author briefly reviews the reasons that physicians order tests and the currently acceptable and unacceptable indications and procedures for non-invasive vascular diagnostic testing. The background for economic analysis, including cost-benefit or cost-effective analysis, is reviewed. Finally, a Medline literature search of articles addressing the cost-effectiveness of non-invasive vascular techniques provides a basis for classification of these tests based on economic analysis.