Screening for certain cancers, such as breast, colon, or cervical cancer, have been shown to save lives.
However, the same can’t be said for a multitude of others, including lung, pancreatic, or ovarian cancer.
Major media outlets, like NBC’s Today Show, have in the past, irresponsibly trumpeted recommendations that have no basis in evidence.
To their credit, journalism professor Gary Schwitzer says they are trying to undo some of that damage, with this piece more critically asking whether we are doing too much cancer screening.
Once again, their resident medical expert, otolaryngologist Nancy Snyderman, chimes in with her support of the digital rectal exam for prostate cancer screening, when in actuality, it only garners an “I” recommendation from the USPSTF.
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Related posts:
- Anti-smoking ads use a crying child, is it too much?
- Should I get a PSA test for prostate cancer? A new study shows that screening for prostate cancer doesn’t necessarily save lives
- How screening for prostate cancer can be a gamble, and why either screening or not has consequences
- 15 cancer screening posts you may have missed
- Prostate cancer screening in men over 75
- Who’s not happy with the new prostate cancer screening recommendations?
- Prostate cancer screening in blacks, and the lack of balanced information
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One of the major medical spokespersons who consistently over-recommends for screening is Dr. Bernadine Healy, who is Health Editor for U.S.News & World Report. She wrote a column in 2007 which pretty much came out in favor of CT screening for lung cancer, and she has also commented on calcium score CT scanning favorably. It is very difficult to tell your patients that there is a lack of evidence for these measures when someone with such official qualifications urges people to obtain these tests. It is even harder to get them to have the tests they really need that are more difficult (colonoscopy) or do the hard work of quitting smoking when there is such a plethora of contradictory advice in the media. The fact that she actually served as a director of the NIH makes it even worse.
These screening posts recently remind me of the book Calculate Risks. Although it was published in 1986, it talks about the effect false positives have on patients. The first few pages are available on Amazon and talk about a patient who received an HIV+ result and subsequently fell into despair.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/sitbv3/reader?ie=UTF8&p=S00D&asin=0743205561
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