Cost-Effectiveness of Screening Helicobacter pylori for Gastric Cancer Prevention: a Systematic Review

Globally, prevalence of Helicobacter pylori is around 50%, and it has a directly proportional relationship with gastric cancer. Screening and treatment of Helicobacter pylori could reduce gastric cancer by 35%. Drawing on the scarce resources, it is reasonable to use the most cost-effectiveness Helicobacter pylori screening procedure. The purpose of this study was to evaluate Helicobacter pylori screening techniques and to specify the efficient technique from a cost-effectiveness perspective. This systematic review was conducted via searching electronic databases including Scopus, Embase, PubMed, Web of Science, and Cochrane Reviews. Our search retrieved 904 articles, of which, 606 full-text studies have been selected after duplicate removal. Next, the 25 articles were sorted based on eligibility criteria and quality appraisal; eventually, only eight studies have been included for analysis. We reported the incremental cost-effectiveness ratio (ICER) screening compared to non-screening and different screening strategies. Eight studies were identified and retained for the final analysis. In this study, when screening techniques were compared to no-screening, serology screening techniques showed to be cost-effective. The lowest ICER calculated was US$$1230 cost per life-year gained (LYG) and US$1500 cost per quality-adjusted life-year (QALY). However, determining the optimal strategy compared to other strategies was depended on parameters such as context-specific, type of cost, threshold, and perspective, and also, it influenced by the framework of the cost-effectiveness analysis.