411P - Cost-effective analysis of the various cancer screening methods in the community: Pooled analysis of camps of 5 years from 2017-to 2022

Background

The cancer, which claims a million deaths per annum across India is a major concern due to presentation in later stages, owing to lack of awareness and structured screening programs. The fragmented screening happens through hospitals (HBS), rural camps by screening buses (CSB), awareness programs, and augmented self-examination (ASE) protocols using AI. This research is aimed to empower cancer screening strategies.

Methods

The effective analysis is based on the number of cancer cases detected and treated effectively. Cost data were collected as a combination of CAPEX and OPEX to do a camp and cost is derived per test using key informant interviews, patient surveys, and other publicly available data sources. A hypothetical cohort of 5,00,000 patients was assumed for assessing each strategy. One-way, two-way, and probabilistic sensitivity analyses were performed to test the robustness of the result. The methods selected were HBS, CSB &ASE.

Results

The results showed augmented self-examination is the best strategy followed by education and lastly screening vehicles. One-way analysis showed that the results were sensitive to the labor cost, but the two-way analysis showed that results are not sensitive to cancer burden. The cost of ASE for 3 cancers (oral, cervical breast) per person is INR 150, for CSB 1200 INR, and for HBS its 650 INR.

Conclusions

ASE is the way forward in developing nations followed by empowering the community health centers and the least effective is cancer screening buses.

Clinical trial identification

Editorial acknowledgement

Legal entity responsible for the study

The authors.

Funding

Has not received any funding.

Disclosure

All authors have declared no conflicts of interest.