Modified Outerbridge classification, which is traditionally calculated by arthroscopic examination, was used in our study.
The percent of gland humanized was calculated by histological examination of the identified humanized regions followed by measurement of the total and humanized areas using Axiovision V4.8 software.
The variation of the method was calculated by repeated examination of a healthy control and phantom and found to be 10% and 5%, respectively, or less.
For each patient, dose intensity (DI) was calculated, by direct examination of pharmacist records and by dividing the total actual dose of each drug by the time needed to deliver it.
The precision of the measurements was calculated by double examinations and expressed as an absolute mean plus 2 times the standard deviation (SD) to cover the 95% confidence interval (CI) (Röhrl et al. 2004) (Table 1).
Examination costs were calculated by changing each factor ("the number of examinations," "labor costs," "depreciation costs of the equipment/system," "maintenance costs of the equipment/system," "time (increasing and decreasing by the skill of the personnel or by the disease severity in the patients)," and "other administrative expenses") by 80% or 120%.
The risk of developing diabetes was calculated by age at first health examination, level of education, and time period (Fig. 4a, b).
The examination value is calculated by extreme value theory, using additionally a confidence upper bound in order to take into account the monitoring duration (described by the number of recorded maxima exceeding a certain threshold).
Labor costs were calculated by multiplying the time spent doing examination activity with the hourly rate taken from the annual salary (radiologic technologist: 6,000,000 yen; medical office personnel: 2,000,000 yen (1,000 yen/h)).
Exact age was calculated by subtracting the date of birth from the date of examination.
