A fairly good article in the NY Times talking about a new blood test screening for ovarian cancer.
Ovarian cancer is normally not detected until the late stage of the disease, so patients have been eager to find an early screening test.
The downside is the unacceptable “false positive” rate (0.6 percent in this case), where the test is positive in the absence of disease. This often leads to removing the ovaries unnecessarily.
At $240 per test, companies profit from the public’s fear of cancer and capitalize on the myth that “more testing must equal better medicine.”
However, they leave out the thousands of unnecessary surgeries and procedures that arise from false positive readings. Equal weight to this complication should be included in their advertisements.
