Showcasing ECR Research in Health Economics: BRCA Screening Webinar
This webinar will feature presentations from Dr Xia Wei (Postdoctoral Researcher, Peking University)and Mackenzie Bourke (PhD Candidate and Research Fellow, University of Melbourne). They will present their research on the economic evaluation of BRCA screening strategies, including implications for prevention policy and resource allocation.
Economic evaluation of genetic testing and management strategies for breast and ovarian cancer
This presentation will present cost-effectiveness evidence on genetic testing and management strategies for breast and ovarian cancer. It will cover economic evaluations of unselected and population-based genetic testing, and gene-specific prevention options (including cancer screening, medical prevention, and risk-reducing surgery) across different risk groups and settings. The analysis considers long-term health outcomes, costs, and quality-of-life impacts, and discusses the implications for management pathways and resource allocation decision-making for breast and ovarian cancer.
Integrating individual-level preferences into an economic evaluation of genomic screening
Successful implementation of genomic screening for the management of breast and ovarian cancer depends on uptake of genetic testing, preventative therapies, and intensified surveillance programs. Where economic evaluations have incorporated patient preferences, these have typically been applied inconsistently and primarily at the cohort level. This study integrates discrete choice experiment data within a discrete-event simulation to predict individual-level preferences and estimate their impact on costs and health outcomes. Preliminary results suggest that incorporating individual preferences has only a marginal impact on average cost-effectiveness outcomes, but a larger effect on subgroup-level cost-effectiveness results, which may have important distributional implications.
Speakers:Â
Xia Wei – Postdoctoral fellow, School of Public Health, Peking University
Xia Wei is a postdoctoral fellow at the School of Public Health, Peking University. She received her PhD from the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine. Her research focuses on health economics, health technology assessment, and evidence-based decision-making in cancer prevention and control. She has published more than 26 full-text publications in peer-review journals, including JAMA Oncology and JAMA Network Open.
Mackenzie Bourke – PhD Candidate, Economics of Genomics and Precision Medicine Unit, University of Melbourne
Mac is a PhD candidate and research assistant in the Economics of Genomics and Precision Medicine Unit at the Melbourne School of Population and Global Health, University of Melbourne. His research focuses on the economic modelling of genomic technologies for cancer and on advancing methodological approaches to better capture the value of genomic medicine in health economic evaluation. His work also examines quality-of-life outcomes among people living with rare conditions and their careers, with the aim of improving how these impacts are measured and incorporated into economic evaluations and policy decisions relating to genomic and precision medicine.