A simulation optimization for breast cancer screening in Turkey

Abstract

Breast cancer is the most common cancer type among women in the world. 6.3 million women were diagnosed with breast cancer between 2007 - 2012 and 25% of cancers in women are breast cancer. Early diagnosis and early detection has an important role in survival from breast cancer. Mammographic screening is proved to be the only screening method that can reduce breast cancer mortality. Even though mammographic screening has this significant benefit, it is expensive and it can decrease life quality and it can generate false positive results. As a consequence, recommending an effective and costefficient mammographic screening policy in terms of starting and ending ages and screening frequencies has high importance. This study aims to optimize Ada’s Breast Cancer Simulation Model using Simulated Annealing. This model was run for Turkish women born in 1980 during their lifetime. The purpose of this study is to obtain an optimal or near optimal policy in terms of life years gained and cost for Turkish women. This study also aims to demonstrate the outcomes in terms of effectiveness and cost when different combinations of policy variables are used.