A systematic review on clinical trials on the different approaches of breast cancer screening uptake in improving screening attendance

ABSTRACT

Background@#The early stage of cancer can be asymptomatic. Thus, different strategies were utilized to increase breast screening attendance which resulted in better treatment outcomes. Therefore, this review aimed to provide evidence on the effectiveness of the different approaches of breast screening uptake in improving screening attendance.@*Objectives@#The primary objective of this systematic review was to determine the effectiveness of the different approaches to breast screening uptake in improving screening attendance. The secondary objective was to identify the socio-geographic profile that affects the screening uptake.@*Methods@#Online databases, such as PubMed and Cochrane Central Register of Controlled Trials, were searched for studies published between January 2010 to December 2020. This review only included comparative randomized clinical trials involving humans as the research participants. In addition, reference lists of included studies were reviewed to identify additional relevant papers.@*Results@#The study included the review of 12 randomized controlled trials. Seven studies were conducted in a European setting, two in the United States of America, another two studies in Asia, and one study conducted in Canada. The intervention strategy to increase screening uptake were diverse in different studies. Ten of these studies used multiple strategies, while the remaining two studies utilized individualized strategies. Most of the studies were individual-based interventions. One study was a group-based intervention. The results showed that these interventions increase the uptake of breast cancer screening than no intervention at all.@*Conclusions@#The review confirmed that any interventions to increase breast screening uptake showed favorable outcomes in increasing breast screening attendance. However, the effectiveness of any one specific intervention cannot be made as these interventional studies greatly varied in terms of their intervention, study population, and geographical area.