Cost-effectiveness of annual versus biennial screening mammography for women with high mammographic breast density.

OBJECTIVES: The sensitivity of screening mammography is much lower among women who have dense breast tissue, compared with women who have largely fatty breasts, and they are also at much higher risk of developing the disease. Increasing mammography screening frequency from biennially to annually has been suggested as a policy option to address the elevated risk in this population. The purpose of this study was to assess the cost-effectiveness of annual versus biennial screening mammography among women aged 50-79 with dense breast tissue. METHODS: A Markov model was constructed based on screening, diagnostic, and treatment pathways for the population-based screening and cancer care programme in British Columbia, Canada. Model probabilities and screening costs were calculated from screening programme data. Costs for breast cancer treatment were calculated from treatment data, and utility values were obtained from the literature. Incremental cost-effectiveness was expressed as cost per quality adjusted life year (QALY), and probabilistic sensitivity analysis was conducted. RESULTS: Compared with biennial screening, annual screening generated an additional 0.0014 QALYs (95% CI: -0.0480-0.0359) at a cost of $819 ($ = Canadian dollars) per patient (95% CI: 506-1185), resulting in an incremental cost effectiveness ratio of $565,912/QALY. Annual screening had a 37.5% probability of being cost-effective at a willingness-to-pay threshold of $100,000/QALY. CONCLUSION: There is considerable uncertainty about the incremental cost-effectiveness of annual mammography. Further research on the comparative effectiveness of screening strategies for women with high mammographic breast density is warranted, particularly as digital mammography and density measurement become more widespread, before cost-effectiveness can be reevaluated.

Overcoming barriers to priority setting using interdisciplinary methods.

Ten years ago, Holm's highly influential paper "Goodbye to the simple solutions: the second phase of priority setting" was published [Holm S. Goodbye to the simple solutions: the second phase of priority setting in health care. British Medical Journal 1998;317:1000-7]. Whilst attending the 2nd International Conference on Priorities in Health Care in London, Holm argued that the search for a rational set of decision-making rules was no longer adequate. Instead, the priority setting process itself was now thought to be more complex. Ten years later, the Conference returns to the UK for the first time, and it is timely to describe some new tools intended to assist both researchers and decision-makers seeking to develop both rational and fair and legitimate priority setting processes. In this paper we argue that to do so, researchers and decision-makers need to adopt an interdisciplinary and collaborative approach to priority setting. We focus on program budgeting and marginal analysis (PBMA) and bring together three hitherto separate interdisciplinary strands of the PBMA literature. Our aim is to assist researchers and decision-makers seeking to effectively develop and implement PBMA in practice. Specifically, we focus on the use of multi-criteria decision analysis, participatory action research, and accountability for reasonableness, drawn from the disciplines of decision analysis, sociology, and ethics respectively.

One-year follow-up of a therapeutic lifestyle intervention targeting cardiovascular disease risk.

BACKGROUND: In this study, we tested the efficacy of a low-intensity lifestyle intervention aimed at reducing the risk of cardiovascular disease among mid-life individuals. METHODS: We conducted a randomized controlled trial in which participants were randomly assigned either to receive a health report card with counselling (from a Telehealth nurse) on smoking, exercise, nutrition and stress or to receive usual care. The patients were divided into 2 groups on the basis of risk: the primary prevention group, with a Framingham risk score of 10% or higher (intervention, n = 157; control, n = 158), and the secondary prevention group, who had a diagnosis of coronary artery disease (intervention, n = 153; control, n = 143). The primary outcome was a change in the Framingham global risk score between baseline and 1-year follow-up. Data were analyzed separately for the 2 prevention groups using an intention-to-treat analysis controlling for covariates. RESULTS: Within the primary prevention group, there were statistically significant changes for the treatment group relative to the controls, from baseline to year 1, in Framingham score (intervention, -3.10 [95% confidence interval (CI) -3.98 to -2.22]; control, -1.30 [95% CI -2.18 to -0.42]; p < 0.01) and scores for total cholesterol (intervention, -0.41 [95% CI -0.59 to -0.23]; control, -0.14 [95% CI -0.32 to 0.04]; p < 0.05), systolic blood pressure (intervention, -7.49 [95% CI -9.97 to -5.01]; control, -3.58 [95% CI -6.08 to -1.08]; p < 0.05), nutrition level (intervention, 0.30 [95% CI 0.13 to 0.47]; control, -0.05 [95% CI -0.22 to 0.12]; p < 0.01), and health confidence (intervention, 0.20 [95% CI 0.09 to 0.31]; control, 0.04 [95% CI -0.07 to 0.15]; p < 0.05), with adjustment for covariates. No significant changes in outcome variables were found for the secondary prevention group. INTERPRETATION: We found evidence for the efficacy of an intervention addressing multiple risk factors for primary prevention at 1 year using Framingham risk score report cards and telephone counselling. (Requirement for clinical trial registration waived [enrolment completed before requirement became applicable].).