Breast and Cervical Cancer Screenings: A Systematic Economic Review of Patient Navigation Services

This paper examined the economic evidence of patient navigation services to increase breast and cervical cancer screenings among historically disadvantaged racial and ethnic populations and people with lower incomes.

The literature search strategy for this systematic review included English-language studies conducted in high-income countries that were published from database inception to December 2022. Studies on patients with existing cancer or without healthcare system involvement were excluded. Analysis was completed in January 2023. All monetary values reported are in 2022 U.S. dollars.

The search yielded 3 breast cancer, 2 cervical cancer, and 2 multiple cancer studies that combined breast and cervical cancer with other cancer screenings. For breast cancer screening, the intervention cost per person ranged from $109 to $10,245. Two studies reported $154 and $740 as intervention cost per additional person screened. Changes in healthcare cost per person from 2 studies were $202 and $2,437. Two studies reported cost per quality-adjusted life year (QALY) gained of $3,852 and $39,159 while one study reported cost per life year (LY) gained of $22,889. For cervical cancer, 2 studies reported intervention cost per person ($103 and $794) and per additional person screened ($56 and $533) with one study reporting a cost per QALY gained ($924).

All estimates of cost per QALY/LY saved for breast cancer screening were below a conservative threshold of $50,000 indicating that patient navigation services for breast cancer screening were cost-effective. There is limited evidence to determine cost-effectiveness of patient navigation services for cervical cancer screening.