Screening

On behalf of the Federal Joint Committee (G-BA), the Institute for Quality and Efficiency in Health Care (IQWiG) investigated whether (former) heavy smokers within statutory health insurance (SHI) should be offered lung cancer screening using low-dose computed tomography (LDCT).

The revised EBM (German Uniform Evaluation Standard) catalog came into force on April 1, 2020. MTRC has compiled the selection of the most significant changes.

On behalf of the Federal Joint Committee (G-BA), the Institute for Quality and Efficiency in Health Care (IQWiG) investigated whether a test of newborns for spinal muscular atrophy (SMA) in Germany would make sense. The affected children benefit from early diagnosis as this enables an earlier start of therapy.

The revised EBM (German Uniform Evaluation Standard) comes into force on April 1, 2020. Among others, the amendments made concern the billing of the services within the framework of early detection of cervical cancer. Also, the new fee order item (GOP) for the human papillomaviruses (HPV) genotyping service was added.

On March 13, 2020, the Institute for Quality and Efficiency in Health Care (IQWiG) announced that the new HTA reports would concern cystitis, heart disease in children, social isolation, as well as vitamin B12 / vitamin D deficiency in the elderly, and the Feldenkrais Method in treatment of mobility disorders.

On February 1, 2020, an additional test was added to the newborn screening, performed 2-3 days after birth. Severe combined immunodeficiency (SCID) is thus the 18th disease for which newborns are screened in Denmark.

At the start of the organized program for the early detection of cervical cancer on January 1, 2020, several new services will be added to the EBM (Einheitlicher Bewertungsmaβstab, German Uniform Evaluation Standard).

In October 2019, the Agency for Health Quality and Assessment of Catalonia (AQuAS) has released an assessment report regarding the scientific evidence on personalized population screening for breast cancer. The current evidence does not allow to recommend any concrete models for individualized risk prediction for breast cancer but allows to recommend the development and evaluation of new models for personalized risk prediction directed to offering different strategies to the screening of population.

On behalf of the Federal Joint Committee (G-BA), the Institute for Quality and Efficiency in Health Care (IQWiG) investigated whether a systematic test of newborns for sickle cell disease (SCD) in Germany would make sense.

In mid-September 2019, the report of the project OTCA19, titled “Screening for osteoporosis in the general population” was published on the website of the European Network for HTA (EUnetHTA).

On the 2nd of September 2019, the Austrian HTA body, the Ludwig-Boltzmann Institute (LBI-HTA) has released a report on guideline recommendations comprising screening for diabetes mellitus.

In late July 2019, the report of the project OTJA10, titled “Stool DNA testing for early detection of colorectal cancer” was published on the website of the European Network for HTA (EUnetHTA).