Economic Evaluations of Screening Programs for Chronic Kidney Disease: A Systematic Review.

Objectives: The aim of this review is to appraise and assimilate evidence from studies that have reported on the cost-effectiveness of screening programs for chronic kidney disease (CKD).

Methods: The study protocol was registered on International Prospective Register of Systematic Reviews (PROSPERO). The final search was conducted on 18 January 2023 using 7 databases. Screening of articles, data extraction, and quality assessment was performed by 2 independent reviewers. The ISPOR-AMCP-NPC checklist was used to assess the credibility of the included studies.

Results: From 4948 retrieved studies, a final total of 20 studies were included in the qualitative synthesis. Studies found that screening in diabetic populations was cost-effective (n = 8, 57%) or even cost-saving (n = 6, 43%). Four studies (67%) found that screening in hypertensive populations was also cost-effective. For the general population, findings were inconsistent across studies in which many found screening to be cost-effective (n = 11, 69%), some cost-saving (n = 2, 12%), and others not cost-effective (n = 3, 19%). The most influential parameters identified were prevalence of CKD and cost of screening.

Conclusions: Screening for CKD in patients with diabetes or hypertension is recommended from a cost-effectiveness point of view. For the general population, despite some inconsistent findings, the majority of studies demonstrated that screening in this population is cost-effective, depending mainly on the prevalence and the costs of screening. Healthcare decision makers need to consider the prevalence, stratification strategies, and advocate for lower screening costs to reduce the burden on healthcare budgets and to make screening even more favorable from the health-economic perspective.