Boston Blog

Tufts asks: Will the well pay to learn risk for cancer, Alzheimer’s?

The Wall Street Journal reports on a study from Health Economics:

While these scenarios are hypothetical, predictive tests are likely coming for diseases including Alzheimer’s, Peter Neumann, the study’s lead author and director of TMC’s Center for the Evaluation of Value and Risk in Health, tells the Health Blog. Of course, he adds, in real life there’s no such thing as a perfect test

This from the abstract:

Of 1463 respondents who completed the survey, most (70-88%, depending on the scenario) were inclined to take the test. Inclination to take the rest was lower for Alzheimer’s and higher for prostate cancer compared with arthritis, and rose somewhat with disease prevalence and for the perfect versus imperfect test. Median WTP varied from $109 for the imperfect arthritis test to $263 for the perfect prostate cancer test. Respondents’ preferences for predictive testing, even in the absence of direct treatment consequences, reflected health and non-health related factors, and suggests that conventional cost-effectiveness analyses may underestimate the value of testing.

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