[The costs of cancer screening (author's transl)].

By the cancer screening programme of the German legal health insurance 4,830,717 females were examined in 1973. The yield of cytologic "positive" cases has been 0.23 percent. The sum for finding one of these cases has been in the range from 14,388.-- DM to 16,132.--DM. As can be calculated by the available data on the incidence of cancer of the cervix uteri only about one third of these cases with "positive" findings can be a proven case of cancer (carcinoma in situ included). Thus one proven carcinoma of this site can be detected by the costs of 40,656.--DM to 80,586.--DM and this sum shows an increasing tendency. In spite of these high costs for the cancer detection programme the total expenses for early detection measures amounted only to 0.6 percent of the total expenditues of the legal health insurance in the first half-year 1974. The problem of a high rate of false-positive smears is discussed.