Simpson, Neil, Anderson, Rob, Sassi, Franco, Pitman, Alexandra, Lewis, Peter M., Tucker, Karen and Lannin, Heather (2005) The cost-effectiveness of neonatal screening for Cystic Fibrosis: an analysis of alternative scenarios using a decision model. Cost Effectiveness and Resource Allocation, 3 (8). ISSN 1478-7547
Full text not available from this repository.Abstract
Background The use of neonatal screening for cystic fibrosis is widely debated in the United Kingdom and elsewhere, but the evidence available to inform policy is limited. This paper explores the cost-effectiveness of adding screening for cystic fibrosis to an existing routine neonatal screening programme for congenital hypothyroidism and phenylketonuria, under alternative scenarios and assumptions. Methods The study is based on a decision model comparing screening to no screening in terms of a number of outcome measures, including diagnosis of cystic fibrosis, life-time treatment costs, life years and QALYs gained. The setting is a hypothetical UK health region without an existing neonatal screening programme for cystic fibrosis. Results Under initial assumptions, neonatal screening (using an immunoreactive trypsin/DNA two stage screening protocol) costs £5,387 per infant diagnosed, or £1.83 per infant screened (1998 costs). Neonatal screening for cystic fibrosis produces an incremental cost-effectiveness of £6,864 per QALY gained, in our base case scenario (an assumed benefit of a 6 month delay in the emergence of symptoms). A difference of 11 months or more in the emergence of symptoms (and mean survival) means neonatal screening is both less costly and produces better outcomes than no screening. Conclusion Neonatal screening is expensive as a method of diagnosis. Neonatal screening may be a cost-effective intervention if the hypothesised delays in the onset of symptoms are confirmed. Implementing both antenatal and neonatal screening would undermine potential economic benefits, since a reduction in the birth incidence of cystic fibrosis would reduce the cost-effectiveness of neonatal screening.
| Item Type: | Article |
|---|---|
| Official URL: | http://www.resource-allocation.com/ |
| Additional Information: | © 2005 The Authors; licensee BioMed Central Ltd. This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. |
| Divisions: | Social Policy |
| Subjects: | R Medicine > RA Public aspects of medicine |
| Date Deposited: | 12 Jun 2012 09:19 |
| Last Modified: | 13 Sep 2024 21:59 |
| URI: | http://eprints.lse.ac.uk/id/eprint/44301 |
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