Claudia Henschke fails evidence-based medicine 101

She is a proponent of CT-scans for early lung cancer detection, and doesn’t get that randomized-controlled studies are the only standard. The rules can’t be rewritten for her cause:

“I don’t get what the resistance is,” Dr. Henschke said.To her, it is a matter of simple logic: the earlier cancer is found, the better the odds of a cure. CT finds lung cancer early. So why not use it? . . .

. . . It may be reasonable to insist on randomized controlled trials for treatments, but not for diagnostic tests, Dr. Henschke says. Her views are unconventional, to say the least. Some researchers say she is trying to rewrite the rules of science.Dr. Barnett Kramer, associate director for Disease Prevention at the National Institutes of Health, took vigorous exception to her assertions, insisting that randomized controlled trials are the only way to find out for sure whether a test or a treatment really works.

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