Cancer of the upper aerodigestive tract: assessment and management in people aged 16 and over

Resource impact statement

No significant resource impact is anticipated

We do not expect this update to the guideline to have a significant impact on resources; that is:

• the resource impact of implementing any single guideline recommendation will be less than £1 million per year in England (or £1,800 per 100,000 population) and
• the resource impact of implementing the whole guideline in England will be less than £5 million per year (or £9,100 per 100,000 population).

Where clinical practice changes as a result of this update to the previous NICE guideline, there will not be a significant change in resource use.

The guideline update covers the treatment of people with head and neck cancers after treatment with radical chemo radiotherapy (CRT). It recommends offering a fluorodeoxyglucose positron emission tomography (FDG PET)-CT scan for certain groups of people as the next stage after CRT rather than neck dissection surgery.

This may increase the number of people having FDG PET-CT (Positron Emission Tomography with Computed Tomography) with a tariff of £611 and reduce the number of people having a surgical intervention with an average tariff of £3,321 based on activity from reference costs 16/17.

Where this occurs there will be a saving per person. However the population size is small,some people will still have both procedures and some providers have already adopted this approach.

The treatment of cancer of the upper aerodigestive tract is commissioned by clinical commissioning groups. Providers are NHS hospital trusts.