Expenditure and resource utilisation for cervical screening in Australia

BACKGROUND The National Cervical Screening Program in Australia currently recommends that women aged 18-69 years are screened with conventional cytology every 2 years. Publicly funded HPV vaccination was introduced in 2007, and partly as a consequence, a renewal of the screening program that includes a review of screening recommendations has recently been announced. This study aimed to provide a baseline for such a review by quantifying screening program resource utilisation and costs in 2010. METHODS A detailed model of current cervical screening practice in Australia was constructed and we used data from the Victorian Cervical Cytology Registry to model age-specific compliance with screening and follow-up. We applied model-derived rate estimates to the 2010 Australian female population to calculate costs and numbers of colposcopies, biopsies, treatments for precancer and cervical cancers in that year, assuming that the numbers of these procedures were not yet substantially impacted by vaccination. RESULTS The total cost of the screening program in 2010 (excluding administrative program overheads) was estimated to be A$194.8M. We estimated that a total of 1.7 million primary screening smears costing$96.7M were conducted, a further 188,900 smears costing $10.9M were conducted to follow-up low grade abnormalities, 70,900 colposcopy and 34,100 histological evaluations together costing$21.2M were conducted, and about 18,900 treatments for precancerous lesions were performed (including retreatments), associated with a cost of $45.5M for treatment and post-treatment follow-up. We also estimated that$20.5M was spent on work-up and treatment for approximately 761 women diagnosed with invasive cervical cancer. Overall, an estimated $23 was spent in 2010 for each adult woman in Australia on cervical screening program-related activities. CONCLUSIONS Approximately half of the total cost of the screening program is spent on delivery of primary screening tests; but the introduction of HPV vaccination, new technologies, increasing the interval and changing the age range of screening is expected to have a substantial impact on this expenditure, as well as having some impact on follow-up and management costs. These estimates provide a benchmark for future assessment of the impact of changes to screening program recommendations to the costs of cervical screening in Australia

Cervical cancer screening in Australia: modelled evaluation of the impact of changing the recommended interval from two to three years

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>The National Cervical Screening Program in Australia currently recommends that sexually active women between the ages of 18-70 years attend routine screening every 2 years. The publically funded National HPV Vaccination Program commenced in 2007, with catch-up in females aged 12-26 years conducted until 2009; and this may prompt consideration of whether the screening interval and other aspects of the organized screening program could be reviewed. The aim of the current evaluation was to assess the epidemiologic outcomes and cost implications of changing the recommended screening interval in Australia to 3 years.</p> <p>Methods</p> <p>We used a modelling approach to evaluate the effects of moving to a 3-yearly recommended screening interval. We used data from the Victorian Cervical Cytology Registry over the period 1997-2007 to model compliance with routine screening under current practice, and registry data from other countries with 3-yearly recommendations to inform assumptions about future screening behaviour under two alternative systems for screening organisation - retention of a reminder-based system (as in New Zealand), or a move to a call-and-recall system (as in England).</p> <p>Results</p> <p>A 3-yearly recommendation is predicted to be of similar effectiveness to the current 2-yearly recommendation, resulting in no substantial change to the total number of incident cervical cancer cases or cancer deaths, or to the estimated 0.68% average cumulative lifetime risk of cervical cancer in unvaccinated Australian women. However, a 3-yearly screening policy would be associated with decreases in the annual number of colposcopy and biopsy procedures performed (by 4-10%) and decreases in the number of treatments for pre-invasive lesions (by 2-4%). The magnitude of the decrease in the number of diagnostic procedures and treatments would depend on the method of screening organization, with call-and-recall screening associated with the highest reductions. The cost savings are predicted to be of the order of A$10-18 M annually, equivalent to 6-11% of the total cost of the current program (excluding overheads), with call-and-recall being associated with the greatest savings.</p> <p>Conclusions</p> <p>Lengthening the recommended screening interval to 3 years in Australia is not predicted to result in increases in rates of cervical cancer and is predicted to decrease the number of women undergoing diagnostic and treatment procedures. These findings are consistent with a large body of international evidence showing that screening more frequently than every three years with cervical cytology does not result in substantial gains in screening effectiveness.</p