Health State Utilities Associated with False-Positive Cancer Screening Results.

Area of Science:

• Health Economics
• Oncology
• Public Health

Background:

• Early cancer detection improves patient outcomes and survival rates.
• Novel multi-cancer early detection tests are emerging.
• Economic evaluations require health state utility values.

Purpose of the Study:

• To quantify the disutility associated with false-positive results from cancer screening.
• To inform cost-utility analyses of cancer screening strategies.

Main Methods:

• Composite time trade-off interviews were conducted with UK general population participants.
• Participants valued health states describing true-negative and false-positive cancer screening scenarios.
• Disutility was calculated as the difference in utility between true-negative and false-positive states over a 1-year horizon.

Main Results:

• The mean utility for a true-negative result was 0.958.
• False-positive results yielded utilities ranging from 0.847 to 0.932.
• Disutilities for false positives ranged from -0.031 to -0.111 quality-adjusted life-year decrements.

Conclusions:

• All false-positive cancer screening results led to a measurable decrease in health utility.
• Higher disutility was linked to invasive procedures, prolonged uncertainty, and perceived cancer severity.
• These utility estimates are valuable for economic modeling of cancer screening programs.