JMIR Publications

ABSTRACT

Background:

With the increasing number of cancer survivorship, there is a corresponding rise in global healthcare expenditure. Digital health interventions have the potential to improve cancer survivorship by overcoming mobility and geographic barriers and more critically, by leveraging Artificial Intelligence (AI) to deliver dynamic, just-in-time supportive interventions and real-time risk stratification based on continuous monitoring of patient-generated health data. Although the clinical benefits of digital health in cancer survivorship care are widely recognized, their economic value remains unclear. This review aims to systematically collate and synthesise the available economic evidence on digital health interventions for cancer survivorship.

Objective:

This systematic review aims to review and synthesize the available economic evidence on digital health interventions designed for cancer survivorship care to inform policy and resource allocation

Methods:

We will systematically review the full and partial economic evaluations of digital health for cancer survivorship. The search will cover the following databases: PubMed, Embase, Web of Science, Scopus, and supplemented by grey literature identified through Google Scholar. Studies will be included if they target cancer survivorship and report economic outcomes of digital health interventions. Data extraction will be structured by the World Bank’s economic evaluation of digital health intervention framework, allowing for a thematic synthesis of costs, outcomes, and perspectives. The reporting quality and transparency of each included study will then be critically appraised using the Consolidated Health Economic Evaluation Reporting Standards (CHEERS) checklist. A narrative synthesis will then be conducted to group and compare the findings by intervention type, cancer type, evaluation perspective, and reported cost-effectiveness.

Results:

This systematic review was registered with PROSPERO on January 19, 2026 (CRD420251251151). The database searches identified 5091 records. After the removal of 896 duplicates in Covidence, 4195 records were screened by title and abstract. Following title and abstract screening, 3831 records were excluded and 364 records were retained for full-text review. At the time of manuscript preparation, full-text screening, data extraction, risk of bias assessment, and data synthesis had not yet been completed.

Conclusions:

This will be the first systematic review to comprehensively synthesize the economic evidence of digital health interventions for the cancer survivors. The findings will provide an evidence base to guide healthcare policy, investment decisions, and the implementation of sustainable and cost-effective digital survivorship care models. Clinical Trial: CRD420251251151. Available from https://www.crd.york.ac.uk/PROSPERO/view/CRD420251251151.