Related Experiment Video
Updated: Jan 15, 2026

Signal Acquisition, Score Interpretation, and Economics of a Non-Invasive Point-of-Care Test for Coronary Artery Disease
Published on: August 9, 2024
The Role of Price Variation in Economic Analyses for Cancer Screenings: A Rapid Review
Austin J Triana1,2, Mason N Alford-Holloway3
1Vanderbilt University Medical Center, Nashville, TN, USA. austin.j.triana@gmail.com.
Background:
Health care spending continues to rise, and recent policies have made prices more visible.
Purpose:
To assess how cost effectiveness analyses obtain price information for common cancer screenings and account for price variation.
Methods:
A systematic search of PUBMED was conducted, extracting studies from 2021 to 2024 in English and evaluating health care services in the USA. Cost-effectiveness analyses were included for four common cancer screenings: prostate cancer, breast cancer, colon cancer, and lung cancer. A single investigator extracted data and assessed quality, reviewed by a second investigator.
Results:
A total of 16 articles met inclusion criteria. Nearly all (94%) cited the Medicare Fee Schedule as the data source for pricing information. About half (44%) of analyses included a degree of price variation. Only three articles (19%) performed a cost-effectiveness analysis with a wide degree of price variation that accurately reflected the true degree of price variation observed in empirical data.
Limitations:
The sample size of included studies was modest, and generalizability is limited beyond these four common cancer screenings.
Conclusions:
Cost-effectiveness analyses in the USA need to reflect the wide price variation that exists in health care, and publicly available price transparency data should guide future work.
Related Concept Videos
Cancer Survival Analysis
Types of Biopharmaceutical Studies: Controlled and Non-Controlled Approaches
Non-controlled studies, commonly employed for initial exploration, lack a control group, rendering them susceptible to biases and external influences. In contrast,...
Comparing the Survival Analysis of Two or More Groups
Variability: Analysis
The range is a simple measure of variability, indicating the difference between the highest and...
Statistical Methods for Analyzing Epidemiological Data
Regression Toward the Mean

