A sample of 500 consecutive women without symptoms of breast disease attending a breast screening clinic were investigated regarding their attitude to breast screening and to the extension of the screening programme to other forms of cancer. Attendance at the screening clinic was found to be reassuring by 94.2%, and 96.4% felt that the screening programme should be extended to include other for...

BACKGROUND The Czech Breast Cancer Screening Programme (CBCSP) was initiated in September 2002 by establishing a network of accredited centres. The aim of this article is to describe progress in the programme quality over time after the inception of the organised programme. METHODS The CBCSP is monitored using an information system consisting of three principal components: 1) the national can...

It is important to understand the full implications of introducing a new screening and treatment programme into the National Health Service. In this paper, we calculate, for mild hypertension, the cost of community-based screening and the cost of case-finding in general practice. We show that case-finding in general practice is both less expensive and more efficient. We calculate the cost of ru...

BACKGROUND Preterm birth is a rising health problem in Europe generally, and in Austria specifically. Decision makers require objective information on the effects and costs of measures to prevent preterm birth. METHODS We undertook a budget impact analysis from a public payer perspective and for a 1-year and 5-year time horizon for five prevention approaches to reduce preterm birth. These wer...

BACKGROUND The aim of the present study was to examine whether the implementation of an organised mammographic screening programme in Florence has been successful in reducing socioeconomic inequalities in breast cancer survival. PATIENTS AND METHODS All invasive breast cancer cases diagnosed in women resident in the city of Florence in a prescreening period and in the first 10 years of the sc...

OBJECTIVES (i) To document the current state of the English, Scottish, Welsh, Northern Irish and Australian bowel cancer screening programmes, according to seven key characteristics, and (ii) to explore the policy trade-offs resulting from inadequate funding. SETTING United Kingdom and Australia. METHODS A comparative case study design using document and key informant interview analysis. Da...

The effects of the screening programme for cancer of the uterine cervix in Great Britain are disputed, and the subject has been underexplored. Accordingly, we have related routinely available data on screening effort in Scotland, Wales, and the 14 English Health Regions to various incidence and mortality outcome measures, from 1967 to the present day. Although such an approach is imperfect, the...

STUDY OBJECTIVE To apply Markov chain models that have previously been used on data in randomised trials of breast cancer screening to data from an uncontrolled service screening programme; to compare results with those from a randomised trial. DESIGN A service screening programme in Uppsala county, Sweden, inviting 25,660 women aged 39-49 to mammographic screening every 20 months, and the Sw...

BACKGROUND High participation rates are an essential component of an effective screening programme and many approaches were introduced as being successful for enhancing compliance to screening guidelines. The aim of this study was to evaluate to which extent a personal invitation by mail increases the rate of attendance in a cervical cancer screening programme in a primary health care centre. ...