“Almost one in four cancers detected in men were overdiagnosed”
“approximately one in five cancers in women were overdiagnosed”
“Cancer overdiagnosis can result in people having unnecessary treatments, such as surgery, radiotherapy and hormone therapy. Being diagnosed with cancer and having cancer treatments can cause physical, psychological and financial harms.”
“Overdiagnosis is when a person is diagnosed with a “harmless” cancer that either never grows or grows very slowly. These cancers are sometimes called low or ultra-low-risk cancers and wouldn’t have spread or caused any problems even if left untreated.
“For prostate cancer, the cause is the quest for early detection of prostate cancer using the prostate specific antigen (PSA) blood test. A downside of PSA testing is the risk of detecting large numbers of low-risk prostate cancers which may be overtreated.”
“We want to maximise the timely detection of high-risk cancers that allows the best chance of cure through early surgery and other treatments.
But this is still possible while taking measures to prevent overdiagnosis and overtreatment of low-risk cancers that are better left undetected.”
“New screening tests that identify clinically important cancers, while leaving slow- and never-growing cancers undetected, are the holy grail. But they could be some time coming.”
https://theconversation.com/29-000-cancers-overdiagnosed-in…
29,000 cancers overdiagnosed in Australia in a single year
New research estimates 24% of cancers in men that were detected in 2012 were overdiagnosed, meaning they never would have caused harm if left untreated.
Posted to FB on 2020-02-13 12:02:08