It is costing up to $65,000 for each life-year saved under Australia’s breast screening program, trigger­ing calls for more to be done to risk-stratify women and reduce overdiagnosis.

Researchers from the ­Cancer Council NSW, who came up with the estimate, are comparing the figure to the renewed cervical screening program, which costs $16,630 per life-year saved, and the bowel cancer screening program, which costs just $3380 per life-year saved.

But significantly, they also point out that $30,000 to $50,000 per life-year saved is typically the threshold that governments in Australia use to determine whether or not to fund screening interventions.

Writing in Public Health Research and Practice, the researchers say the number of false positive screens and interval cancers need to be minimised in a program where some 1.7 million women aged 50-74 were screened in 2015-16 alone.