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screened for cancer and failure on the part of many physicians to refer at-risk patients for screening. The quality of evidence supporting expanded screening is mixed. Some types of screening have been shown to be cost-effective in Western countries, but it is not clear whether these results can be generalized to Saudi Arabia. Other types of screening, such as breast cancer screening in low- and average-risk women, probably are not cost-effective. Still other types of screening have mixed or inconclusive evidence of cost-effectiveness. If policy makers want to expand certain types of screening, various interventions potentially could increase uptake in a cost-effective fashion. Such interventions include reminder letters, postcards, text messages, and phone calls; patient navigation programs (for example, programs run by nurses to assist patients through the screening process); and the direct provision of self-sampling kits to consumers. The cost-effectiveness literature for many of these programs, however, is too sparse to allow definitive conclusions. Overall, there are significant gaps in knowledge. Definitive evidence of both effectiveness and cost-effectiveness for many of the programs described in this chapter is lacking. Cost-effectiveness analyses specific to Saudi Arabia are almost nonexistent, and additional research is recommended.
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