cost effectiveness of type 2 diabetes screening: a systematic review

background: although studies reported diabetes mellitus screening cost effective, the mass screening for type2 diabetes remains controversial. in this study we reviewed the recently evidence about the cost effectiveness of mass screening systematically.   methods: we reviewed the medline, scopus, web of science (wos), and cochrane library databases by mesh terms to identify relevant studies from 2000 to 2013. we had 4 inclusion and 6 exclusion criteria and used the drummond's checklist for appraising the quality of studies.   results: the initial search yielded 358 potentially related studies from selected databases. 6 studies met our inclusion and exclusion criteria and included in final review. 3 and 2 of them were conducted in europe and america and only one of them in asia. quality-adjusted life year (qaly) was the main outcome to appraise the effectiveness in the studies. incremental cost effectiveness ratio (icer) was computed in range from $516.33 to $126,238 per qaly in the studies.   conclusion: a review of previous diabetes screening cost effectiveness analysis showed that the studies varied in some aspects but reached similar conclusions. they concluded that the screening may be cost effective, however further studies is required to support the diabetes mass screening.