Potential cost-savings of breastfeeding promotion to prevent breast cancer: a Monte Carlo simulation
Brief Report Open access Published: 24 February 2025 Lai Ling Hui1,2, Emily Liao1, Jin Xiao Lian3, Ching So3, Ting Ting Wu4, Carlos K. H. Wong4,5,6, Tharani Loganathan7 & …Edmund Anthony S. Nelson2,8 International Breastfeeding Journal volume20, Articlenumber:10 (2025) Cite this article 402 Accesses 4 Altmetric Metrics details AbstractBackgroundBreastfeeding protects mothers against breast cancer. Our study aimed to estimate the healthcare cost-savings resulting from a reduction in breast cancer attributed to an increase in the breastfeeding rate in Hong Kong.MethodsThis is an economic evaluation. We constructed an individual-based Monte Carlo method to simulate with probabilistic sensitivity analysis the development of breast cancer over a woman’s lifetime in a hypothetical birth cohort aged 20 years in 2018 (n = 33500) using best available data mainly from government statistics. We predicted the cases of, and deaths due to breast cancer in the base case (with the actual breastfeeding...