Cost effectiveness and the role of the National Institute of Health and Care Excellence (NICE) in interventional radiology.

Healthcare expenditure is continually increasing and projected to accelerate in the future, with an increasing proportion being spent on interventional radiology. The role of cost effectiveness studies in ensuring the best allocation of resources is discussed, and the role of National Institute of Health and Care Excellence (NICE) in determining this. Issues with demonstrating cost effectiveness have been discussed, and it has been found that there is significant scope for improving cost effectiveness, with suggestions made for how this can be achieved.

An unusual case of S-shaped malformation of the ipsilateral kidney with normal contralateral kidney.

Crossed ectopia is a rare congenital anomaly. S-shaped (sigmoid) kidney is one of the varieties of crossed ectopia that is associated with absence of any renal tissue in the contralateral renal fossa. S-shaped malformation of an ipsilateral kidney with presence of the contralateral kidney is an extremely rare condition and, to our knowledge, has been described only once before in the literature.