Rapid Diagnostics Of Cancer Increases The Number Of Cases Overdiagnosis

Rapid Diagnostics Of Cancer Increases The Number Of Cases Overdiagnosis.
A unexplored assess suggests that doctors need to address the problem of overdiagnosis in cancer disquiet - the detection and possible treatment of tumors that may never cause symptoms or lead to death. The magazine authors found that about 25 percent of breast cancers found through mammograms and about 60 percent of prostate cancers detected through prostate-specific antigen (PSA) tests may be examples of overdiagnosis.

About half of lung cancers detected through some screening tests may also note overdiagnosis. For several types of cancer - thyroid, prostate, breast, kidney and melanoma - the platoon of immature cases has gone up over the sometime 30 years, but the death rate has not, the authors noted.

Research suggests that more screening tests are creditable for the increased diagnosis rate. "Whereas early detection may well help some, it unmistakeably hurts others," Dr H Gilbert Welch and Dr William Black, of the VA Medical Center in White River Junction, Vt, and the Dartmouth-Hitchcock Medical Center, wrote in a telecast unfetter from the US National Cancer Institute.

So "Often the decision about whether or not to trace early cancer detection involves a delicate balance between benefits and harms - disparate individuals, even in the same situation, might reasonably make different choices". In a commentary, Dr Laura Esserman, of the University of California at San Francisco, and Dr Ian Thompson, of the University of Texas Health Science Center at San Antonio, wrote: "What we poverty now in the land of cancer is the coming together of physicians and scientists of all disciplines to bring down the burden of cancer death and cancer diagnosis.