Cancer Screening Study

When it comes to cancer screening, too much can be as harmful as too little according to a new study.

A new paper in Annals of Internal Medicine says that “over diagnosis” of cancer is a real health threat and makes recommendations on how to explain the concept to patients.

The definition of over diagnosis is the detection of a cancer that never would have been picked up had testing not taken place. And what this means is that people probably would have died of other causes never knowing that they had the cancer.

The authors call for improvements in communicating risks and rewards for cancer screening. For more information go to annals.org.