Looking at just length of life (whether it "saves" lives) is kind of ridiculous to me. Breast cancer, for example, is relatively treatable compared to other cancers. So someone with a later...
Looking at just length of life (whether it "saves" lives) is kind of ridiculous to me. Breast cancer, for example, is relatively treatable compared to other cancers. So someone with a later diagnosis may still live as long as someone with an early diagnosis caught by regular mammography. But the quality of life impacts can vary drastically - later diagnoses may require radiation and/or chemotherapy, when very early cases may simply require surgery. Cancer treatments suck to go through, and every additional treatment is another chance for long-term complications.
I am very high risk for breast cancer, so this study doesn't apply to me; I'll be getting MRIs and mammograms every six months until I have a mastectomy. But the reason I plan to get a mastectomy is similar - for me, the question is not so much "if" as "when," so I'd rather do whatever I can do reduce that risk and hopefully avoid the shittier treatments (by choosing surgery ahead of time).
It "doesn't save lives" because the treatment often kills people. The headline has been spun to sound like there's no point testing (deliberately, I'm sure), when the actual solution is improving...
It "doesn't save lives" because the treatment often kills people. The headline has been spun to sound like there's no point testing (deliberately, I'm sure), when the actual solution is improving treatment.
Can you flesh out your POV here a bit more? This feels like a shallow kneejerk take without much substance. What do you think should be done to improve treatment? Are you arguing that we already...
Can you flesh out your POV here a bit more? This feels like a shallow kneejerk take without much substance.
What do you think should be done to improve treatment? Are you arguing that we already have good treatments in place and just need to reform care to apply them better and make them more accessible - or something else?
If our current treatments are inadequate and don't extend lifespan, then what is the point in testing as you see it? There are already hundreds of thousands of people employed in the arena of improving treatment - is your solution of improving treatment just a matter of letting them keep working as-is?
A systematic review and meta-analysis involving more than 2 million patients showed that with the possible exception of colorectal cancer screening with sigmoidoscopy, the "current evidence does not substantiate the claim that common cancer screening tests save lives by extending lifetime," reported Michael Bretthauer, MD, PhD, of the University of Oslo in Norway, and colleagues.
[...]
In a simultaneously published Viewpoint articleopens in a new tab or window, Bretthauer and two colleagues suggested that despite concerns about overdiagnosis and harms of screening, it is "difficult, or indeed impossible" to phase screening programs out, "even when research has failed to document significant benefits," and discussions about the balance of harms and benefits associated with screening "have become a threat to powerful stakeholders."
Looking at just length of life (whether it "saves" lives) is kind of ridiculous to me. Breast cancer, for example, is relatively treatable compared to other cancers. So someone with a later diagnosis may still live as long as someone with an early diagnosis caught by regular mammography. But the quality of life impacts can vary drastically - later diagnoses may require radiation and/or chemotherapy, when very early cases may simply require surgery. Cancer treatments suck to go through, and every additional treatment is another chance for long-term complications.
I am very high risk for breast cancer, so this study doesn't apply to me; I'll be getting MRIs and mammograms every six months until I have a mastectomy. But the reason I plan to get a mastectomy is similar - for me, the question is not so much "if" as "when," so I'd rather do whatever I can do reduce that risk and hopefully avoid the shittier treatments (by choosing surgery ahead of time).
It "doesn't save lives" because the treatment often kills people. The headline has been spun to sound like there's no point testing (deliberately, I'm sure), when the actual solution is improving treatment.
Can you flesh out your POV here a bit more? This feels like a shallow kneejerk take without much substance.
What do you think should be done to improve treatment? Are you arguing that we already have good treatments in place and just need to reform care to apply them better and make them more accessible - or something else?
If our current treatments are inadequate and don't extend lifespan, then what is the point in testing as you see it? There are already hundreds of thousands of people employed in the arena of improving treatment - is your solution of improving treatment just a matter of letting them keep working as-is?
[...]