overdiagnosis - HealthNewsReview.org

May 28 2013

Journal editors decry the paradox of mental health: overtreatment and under-recognition

…orted and shared, so that the full picture of the benefits and harms of tested interventions can be seen (see, for example, http://www.alltrials.net). Conferences hosted by PharmedOut (http://www.pharmedout.org/) and Avoiding Overdiagnosis (http://www.preventingoverdiagnosis.net/) It concludes: “The largest challenge may be to recognize and prioritize mental health globally—with the requisite political visibility, funding, research, and at…
Aug 25 2009

Reliable Sources allows more prostate screening crusading to flow through

…an it be a bad thing? The U.S. Preventive Services Task Force reminds men that it can be. They state: Potential harms from PSA screening include additional medical visits, adverse effects of prostate biopsies, anxiety, and overdiagnosis (the identification of prostate cancer that would never have caused symptoms in the patient’s lifetime, leading to unnecessary treatment and associated adverse effects). Much uncertainty surrounds which c…
Jun 26 2012

Using football as bait for prostate cancer screening

…ent body on screening around, the United States Preventive Services Task Force (USPSTF), recently said they wanted to punt the PSA test out of the game. Or why some researchers have called the PSA test the “Poster Child for Overdiagnosis.” It might be understandable that many men who have looked closely at the stats refuse to play the PSA game knowing that the fallout can include unnecessary surgery, incontinence and impotence, all because of…
Jun 21 2010

NY Daily News begins second decade of evading evidence on PSA screening

…service project sponsored by the radio station, the supermarket chain, and a radiation oncology practice. A commercial like this plays to our fears and prejudices. … Prostate cancer screening has resulted in substantial overdiagnosis and in unnecessary treatment. It may have saved relatively few lives. … The benefits of prostate cancer screening are still open to question. This means that informed or shared decision making should be d…
Nov 21 2012

General health checkups find lots of new problems but don’t cut morbidity/mortality

…“are that those who come [in for a checkup] tend to be the ‘worried well,’ who may bear a high risk for being diagnosed with false positives or negatives. Indeed, [the study authors] suggested that there was overdiagnosis — that routine checks tend to pick up conditions that were treated with no obvious benefit in terms of [illness] or mortality.” In his published commentary, MacAuley concluded that “policy sho…
Oct 4 2010

This is the way the Swedish mammography study could/should have been analyzed

… magnitude of benefit between this study and the USPSTF, but this study won’t help us at all with the issue of the magnitude of the harms (including the experience of women with false positive results and the effects of overdiagnosis). Now, to look at the Swedish study, it is also worthwhile to note that these investigators have an obvious point of view from the start. Their previous papers (especially Tabar and Duffy) have all come to the…
Jan 6 2012

“Stop inappropriate, expensive & perhaps even unethical radical therapies for a condition that by itself does not kill”

…er field have been called “adenosis.” They’ve been called IDLE – indolent lesions of epithelial origin. Whatever these cells are called, one practical goal for now is to educate men about the harms of overdiagnosis and overtreatment and offer active surveillance as a treatment option. …
Oct 26 2011

British breast cancer screening now under independent review

…ets exaggerated benefits and did not spell out the risks. Journals showed a reputable and growing body of international opinion acknowledging that breast cancer screening was not as good as used to be thought. The distress of overdiagnosis and decision making when finding lesions that might (or might not) be cancer that might (or might not) require mutilating surgery is increasingly being exposed. The oft repeated statement that “1400 lives…
Aug 9 2011

TheNNT on lung cancer CT

…tance in their attempts to quit smoking. They should know the number of patients needed to screen to avoid one lung-cancer death, the limited amount of information that can be gained from one screening test, the potential for overdiagnosis and other harms, and the reduction in the risk of lung cancer after smoking cessation. The NLST investigators report newly proven benefits to balance against harms and costs, so that physicians and patients can…
Jun 11 2011

Heart screening tests that should be screened more closely by consumers

…“Imaginary Invalid”. Now, who will write the “Healthy unwitting”? We must recognize the discrepancy between the expected and the actual impact of screening in real life settings. Disease mongering and overdiagnosis are a source of harm. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Imaginary_Invalid“ …