Cost-benefit Analysis of Breast Cancer Screening with Digital Mammography: A Systematic Review

Breast cancer is a non-communicable and common disease that accounts for a high percentage of deaths. Early diagnosis of this disease reduces the death rate. Screening methods such as digital mammography can help prevent or identify the disease earlier. Therefore, this study aims to analyze the cost-benefit of breast cancer using digital mammography.  

This systematic review was conducted based on PRISMA 2020 checklist. PubMed, Scopus, Web of Science, ProQuest, Cochrane Library, and Google Scholar were searched without any time limitation on June 2022. The quality of the studies was evaluated with the CHEERS checklist. After data extraction, the results were synthesized by thematic content analysis.  

During the search, 3468 records were identified, of which 1061 were duplicates. 2407 titles and abstracts screened in terms of inclusion criteria. Finally, after studying 20 fulltexts, three of them were included in the study. The quality of these articles was scored between 10 and 16. These studies were from Spain, Denmark, and the United States from 2000 to 2019. Two studies showed that digital mammography is not as effective as other screening methods.  

The results of this study showed that digital mammography is not very cost-benefit for the health care system. An increase in its repetition frequency imposes more costs on the health system and doesn’t have more benefits for it.