Economic benefits of early stage intervention in breast cancer

Decisions to commit substantial resources to a continued expansion of breast screening programs will almost certainly include economic considerations. That is, screening cost estimates suggest that mammography is a relatively expensive procedure. For example, it has been estimated that it would have cost $622 million to screen all women over 40 in the U.S. in 1971. If we are to determine whether these economic costs are prohibitive, it is useful to consider the economic benefits (cost savings) of early intervention as well as the humanitarian benefits considered in the current literature. To omit them would be to underestimate the value of mammography. Unfortunately, the economic benefits of such intervention remain relatively unexplored. As such, in this paper the authors present the results of an initial effort to provide estimates of potential savings available from early intervention in breast cancer.