Background: Cancer is the third cause of death following cardiovascular disease and accidents, in Iran. The purpose of this study was to systematically review the economic burden of cancer studies in Iran. Methods: This systematic review examined the types of direct medical and non-medical costs and indirect costs in cancer patients and includes studies in English and Persian that were reviewed in Scopus, Web of science, SID, Iranmedex, Magiran and databases of Medline, etc., from 1995-2019. Results: Twenty-one articles were included. Most studies have examined the direct costs of all types of cancers. The articles reviewed different types of cancer, such as prostate cancer (n=2), colorectal cancer (n=2), breast cancer (n=4), gastric cancer (n=2), oral and pharyngeal cancer (n=1), lung cancer (n=3), and blood cancer (n=4). The great number of studies were related to the gastrointestinal, breast and blood cancers. The gastrointestinal (gastric and colorectal) and breast cancer had the major economic burden than others. Conclusion: It is necessary that special attention to patients, supportive measures to reduce the share of costs, and more budget allocation for prevention, screening and early detection being at priorities in the health system planning.

Corona 2 virus (SARS-CoV-2) is known as the causative agent of COVID-19 disease; the World Health Organization (WHO) declared it an epidemic on March 11, 2020. The Joint Guidelines of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and the WHO including social distancing, the use of face masks, emphasis on hand washing, quarantine, and using diagnosis tests have been used widely, but the value of diagnostic interventions to prevent the transmission of SARS-CoV-2 is unclear. We compared the economic evaluation of different laboratory diagnostic interventions with each other and also with implementing the conservative CDC & WHO guidelines. Electronic searches were conducted on PubMed, Embase, Science Direct, Scopus, Cochrane Library, Web of Knowledge, NHSEED, NHS Health Technology assessment (CRD), and Cost-Effectiveness Analysis Registry databases. Related articles were reviewed from January 2020 to the end of November 2021. Out of 1791 initial studies, 13 articles had the inclusion criteria. According to the Consolidated Health Economic Evaluation Reporting Standards (CHEERS) checklist, ten studies were of excellent quality, and the remaining two studies were of very good quality. Most studies were cost-effectiveness analysis studies. The entered studies had different time horizons. Diagnostic tests reviewed in the studies included real-time polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR) test, immunoglobulin G (IgG) & Antigen, point of care tests. Although polymerase chain reaction (PCR) testing improves the quality of life and survival for patients with infected Covid-19 based on its greater effectiveness compared to standard protection protocols, due to the high cost of this intervention, it has been considered a cost-effective method in some countries. Since most studies have been conducted in developed countries, it unquestionably does not make sense to extend these results to low-income and developing countries. Therefore further studies are required in low-income and developing countries to evaluate the cost-effectiveness of laboratory-based diagnostic methods (RT-PCR) of covid-19 in variable prevalence of infectious cases.

Background and Aims: Coronavirus has burdened considerable expenditures on the different health systems. Vaccination programs, the critical solution against pandemic diseases, are known as safe and effective interventions to prevent and control epidemics. We aimed to perform a systematic review to provide economic evidence of the value of different types of vaccines available to combat the Covid‐19 to all health policymakers worldwide. Methods: Electronic searches conducted on Medline/PubMed, Cochrane Library, Web of Science, Scopus, Embase, and other economic evaluation databases. Related and published articles searched up to March 2022 by using keywords such as “Vaccination,” “Covid‐19,” “Cost‐benefit,” “Cost‐utility,” “Cost‐effectiveness,” “Economic Assessment,” and “Economic evaluation.” Followed by choosing the most suitable articles according to inclusion and exclusion criteria, data captured and the results extracted. The quality assessment of the articles performed by the checklist of CHEERS 2022. Finally, 13 articles included in the review. Results: All messenger RNA vaccines were dominant with approximately 70% coverage against no vaccination in the primary vaccination program except in one study that looked at booster effects. From a payer's perspective, a dollar invested in a vaccine would be less profitable than from a societal perspective. Therefore, primary mass vaccination can be considered a cost‐effective intervention in primary vaccination to save more lives and produce more positive externalities. However, the cost‐benefit ratio for all vaccines increases when statistical lifetime value and global economic and educational disadvantages are considered. Conclusion: The COVID‐19 primary vaccination programs in regional outbreaks, from a long‐term perspective, will demonstrate substantial cost‐effectiveness. It is suggested that due to the positive externalities of vaccination, primary mass vaccination, with the help of COVAX‐19TM, could be considered a reliable way to combat viral epidemics compared to the loss of individual lives and economic and educational disturbances around the world.

Chronic heart failure (CHF) is a clinical status and a progressive health disorder extremely related to increased morbidity and mortality worldwide. Accordingly, this study aimed to assess systemat...

Context: If the diameter of an aneurysm increases by more than 6 cm, the risk of aortic rupture increases by 50% within 10 years. Therefore, rupture of aneurysm, which is usually asymptomatic, can lead to severe complications and increase the risk of mortality. The current study aimed to systematically review studies comparing the cost-effective endovascular aneurysm repair (EVAR) and open surgical repair (OSR) as the primary treatment options for patients with ruptured abdominal aortic aneurysms (AAAs). Methods: An electronic search was conducted in PubMed, EMBASE, Science Direct, Scopus, and other scientific economic databases. Relevant articles were searched from 1999 to 2020 using keywords, such as “abdominal aortic aneurysm”, “endovascular”, “open surgery”, “rupture”, “economic evaluation”, and “cost-effectiveness”. The quality of articles was assessed using the Quality of Health Economic studies (QHES) checklist; finally, five articles were included in this review. Results: The results of the QHES checklist showed that most studies had a good quality. A third-party payer’s perspective was the dominant perspective in all selected studies, comparing EVAR with OSR. All studies considered the direct medical costs and did not disclose any discount rates, except for one study, reporting a 3.5% discount rate. Almost all included studies found EVAR to be a cost-effective intervention; only one study concluded that EVAR, with a cost-effectiveness ratio of €424,542, was not the best treatment option. Conclusion: In patients with ruptured AAAs, the EVAR intervention improved the quality of life, decreased the mortality rate, and shortened the hospital stay as compared to OSR.

BackgroundSecondhand smoke (SHS) can cause various health problems among different age groups worldwide. Socioeconomic factors may influence the distribution of SHS exposure among population subgroups. We aimed to estimate socioeconomic inequality in SHS exposure and identify its contributing factors among a sample of Iranian adults.MethodsThis cross-sectional investigation utilized baseline data from the Ravansar Non-Communicable Disease cohort study. The study population comprised 7991 middle-aged adults aged between 35 and 65 years. To determine socioeconomic status (SES) principal component analysis (PCA) was used. The Wagstaff normalized concentration index (Cn) was utilized to measure the extent of socioeconomic inequality in SHS. Furthermore, decomposition analysis was performed to identify the factors contributing to the observed inequality in SHS exposure.ResultsThe prevalence of SHS exposure among men, women, and the total population was 38.23%, 47.29%, and 43.89%, respectively. The concentration index (Cn) value for SHS exposure was - 0.121 (95% confidence interval [CI]: -0.146, -0.096) in the study participants. Among men and women, the values were - 0.080 (95% CI: -0.122, -0.037) and - 0.095 (95% CI: -0.112, -0.063), respectively, indicating a higher concentration of SHS among individuals with low SES. Female sex (35.17%), socioeconomic status (31.83%), being married (-26.36%), and rural residency (22.44%) were identified as the primary factors contributing to the observed inequality in SHS exposure.ConclusionThe research findings revealed a pro-rich inequality in SHS, with a significant concentration among low-SES individuals. In terms of the main contributors to socioeconomic inequality in SHS exposure, policy interventions need to pay attention to females, individuals with low SES, and married individuals to address inequality in SHS exposure.