Suture for a Living: Over Diagnosis of Breast Cancers

Suture for a Living: Over Diagnosis of Breast Cancers: "Are breast cancers over-diagnosed? If so, how often? Those are the questions looked at by the systematic review of incidence reported data/articles done by Karsten Juhl Jørgensen & colleagues. Their results are published online in the June 9th issue of the British Medical Journal. Their review shows an estimated 52% over-diagnosis of breast cancer.

The researchers’ objective was to estimate the extent of over-diagnosis. Screening for breast cancer is meant to detect lethal cancers earlier. Unfortunately it also detects harmless ones that will not cause death or symptoms. As it is not possible to distinguish between lethal and harmless cancers, all detected cancers are treated. Over-diagnosis and overtreatment are therefore inevitable."