Evaluate potential MCD test benefits, harms, and costs
Before MCD tests can be widely used in Australia, we need to understand whether they offer the right balance of benefits, harms, and costs. This program component will estimate how well MCD tests could improve early cancer diagnosis and survival, while also assessing potential downsides such as false positives (when an MCD test wrongly returns a cancer signal for a person without cancer), harms from clinical investigations, and resulting anxiety. It will also estimate the potential costs of introducing these tests into Australia’s healthcare system.
Mapping current patterns in cancer care in Australia
To understand the potential added value of MCD tests, we first need to get a clear a picture of the current cancer landscape in Australia. We will analyse large-scale linked datasets to map real-world patterns and trends in cancer incidence, stage at diagnosis, survival, and healthcare costs in Australia. This will help us understand the expected future cancer burden without MCD testing. The results will provide a critical baseline to evaluate whether MCD tests could meaningfully shift outcomes for Australians
By examining real-world patterns in care, we can identify where delays in diagnosis occur, where existing pathways perform well, and where there may be opportunities for improvement. These insights will guide how we model different MCD testing approaches and evaluate whether they could meaningfully shift outcomes for Australians.
The research activity is led by A/Prof Julia Steinberg (The Daffodil Centre).
Using a simulation model and performing health economic analyses
We will harness and extend an existing and major simulation platform, called Policy1, developed by the Cancer Elimination Collaboration team, to evaluate the potential impacts – this will be a computer program that represents the Australian population and health system, and allows to run many “what-if” scenarios of current care and different approaches to MCD testing. The program will draw on the latest international evidence, including emerging trial data, and help interpret it within the Australian context as the technology evolves.
Our team will build on extensive expertise and leverage our pre-developed platforms in modelling different cancer screening programs in Australia and internationally. This includes the Policy1 microsimulation platform, which has already supported major impact and health economic evaluations of Australia’s cervical, bowel, breast, and lung cancer screening programs, among many other applications. Building on these established tools and methods, we will estimate potential health benefits and harms, changes in cancer outcomes, and the likely costs and cost-effectiveness of introducing MCD testing.
The results will provide robust, Australian-specific estimates of how MCD testing could perform in practice, to support recommendations on next steps as part of the Roadmap.
The research activity is led by Prof Karen Canfell (Cancer Elimination Collaboration) and A/Prof Michael Caruana (Cancer Elimination Collaboration).