Recommendations for Implementing Lung Cancer Screening with Low-Dose Computed Tomography in Europe.

Lung cancer screening (LCS) with low-dose computed tomography (LDCT) was demonstrated in the National Lung Screening Trial (NLST) to reduce mortality from the disease. European mortality data has recently become available from the Nelson randomised controlled trial, which confirmed lung cancer mortality reductions by 26% in men and 39-61% in women. Recent studies in Europe and the USA also showed positive results in screening workers exposed to asbestos.

Inequalities in the benefits of national health insurance on financial protection from out-of-pocket payments and access to health services: cross-sectional evidence from Ghana.

A central pillar of universal health coverage (UHC) is to achieve financial protection from catastrophic health expenditure. There are concerns, however, that national health insurance programmes with premiums may not benefit impoverished groups. In 2003, Ghana became the first sub-Saharan African country to introduce a National Health Insurance Scheme (NHIS) with progressively structured premium charges.

Systematic review and bivariate/HSROC random-effect meta-analysis of immunochemical and guaiac-based fecal occult blood tests for colorectal cancer screening.

Background: Current literature evidences higher accuracy of immunological (iFOBT) vis-à-vis guaiac-based (gFOBT) fecal occult blood tests for colorectal cancer (CRC) screening. Few well-designed head-to-head comparisons exist.

Aim: This meta-analysis assesses the performances of two iFOBTs compared with an established gFOBT using colonoscopy as the gold standard.

Health economic value of an innovation: delimiting the scope and framework of future market entry agreements.

Background And Objectives: The objective of our paper is to offer a new, payer-friendly taxonomy of market entry agreements (MEAs) that aims to twin contracts with their methodological designs in an effort to clarify the distinction between contracts that are based on performance and those that are based on demonstrated effect.

Methods: Our analysis proceeds in two stages: First, we delimit the scope and framework of pay for performance (P4P) and pay for demonstrated effect (P4E) agreements. Second, we distinguish the methodological designs supporting the implementation of each of these contracts.