Cost-utility of repeated screening for chlamydia trachomatis

Objective: To estimate the cost-effectiveness of repeated screening for chlamydia trachomatis at various time intervals compared to one-off screening of Dutch young adults.

Methods: We used a dynamic model to fully take the spread of the disease over time in the population into account, with data being used gathered within the context of a recently performed pilot study in The Netherlands. The screening frequencies analyzed were: every year, every 2 years, every 5 years, and every 10 years. The strategies were compared in terms of incremental cost-effectiveness, expressed as the net costs per quality-adjusted life-year (QALY).

Results: For all interval strategies, with the exception of screening every year, incremental cost-effectiveness stays below the informal Dutch threshold of 20,000 per QALY.

Conclusions: From a health-economic point of view, for the Dutch situation, we estimated screening every 2 years as the optimal strategy among the options investigated.