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i saw this in Medpage too...i never knew Lung cancer could be a slow growing cancer that would not have affected a person, it's the treatment for the overdiagnosed lung cancer that causes the mortality...i just thought any lung cancer is an automatic fatality? there are some cancers less serious, but i thoughtgt lung cancer was a serious one...but the article says any cancer can be fast growing or slow growing. the slow growing ones, the treatment causes more damage than the cancer would have...
i knew prostrate cancer was NORMALLYy slow growing and would not affect a person. My uncle died of prostrate cancer, so that too can become fast growing, although normally not. The problem in medicine nobody ever know which kind they have if they get it.........I'm an ex-smoker so i think this is interestin g to know.......all ex-smokers should know
CT Screening Overdiagnoses Lung Cancer
Published: Dec 9, 2013 | Updated: Dec 10, 2013
By Crystal Phend, Senior Staff Writer, MedPage Today
Reviewed by Robert Jasmer, MD; Associate Clinical Professor of Medicine, University of California, San Francisco and Dorothy Caputo, MA, BSN, RN, Nurse Planner
Action Points
About 18% of lung cancers caught by low-dose CT screening were slow-growing tumors that wouldn't have affected patients during their lifetime.
Note that the study suggests that lung cancer screening programs should address the issue of overdiagnosis.
About 18% of lung cancers caught by low-dose CT screening were slow-growing tumors that wouldn't have affected patients during their lifetime, an analysis of the National Lung Screening Trial (NLST) showed.
That trial showed a mortality advantage to screening, but for every one lung cancer death prevented per 320 patients with screening in the trial, 1.38 cases of overdiagnosis would be expected, Edward F. Patz Jr., MD, of Duke University Medical Center, and colleagues found.
"These overdiagnosis cases represent an important potential harm of screening because they incur additional cost, anxiety, and morbidity associated with cancer treatment," they wrote online in JAMA Internal Medicine.
Patz and colleagues recommended that physicians include the risk of overdiagnosis in describing the risks of low-dose CT screening for lung cancer to patients.
While the findings may help shape patient expectations, they wouldn't likely shift the risk-benefit ratio much for individual patients, Patz suggested in an interview with MedPage Today.
Nor is the recent U.S. Preventive Services Task Force recommendation to screen high-risk patients annually likely to be affected, he argued.
"I don't think this will shift recommendations at all," he said. "It's just part of this entire puzzle we're trying to piece together, how we can best offer a mass screening program as public policy."
The American College of Radiology agreed, in a statement calling the overdiagnosis rate "modest" and in line with the projected rate with other types of cancer screening.
"Lung cancer screening using low-dose CT is the only test ever shown to reduce mortality in high-risk smokers, the leading cause of cancer death in the U.S. It does so cost effectively compared to other screening tests," the statement said. "Overdiagnosis is an expected part of any screening program and does not alter these facts."
http://www.medpagetoday.com/Pulmonology/LungCancer/43327?xid=nl_mpt_DHE_2013-12-10&utm_content=&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=DailyHeadlines&utm_source=WC&eun=g330076d0r&userid=330076&email=baileyif@yahoo.com&mu_id=5324077
i knew prostrate cancer was NORMALLYy slow growing and would not affect a person. My uncle died of prostrate cancer, so that too can become fast growing, although normally not. The problem in medicine nobody ever know which kind they have if they get it.........I'm an ex-smoker so i think this is interestin g to know.......all ex-smokers should know
CT Screening Overdiagnoses Lung Cancer
Published: Dec 9, 2013 | Updated: Dec 10, 2013
By Crystal Phend, Senior Staff Writer, MedPage Today
Reviewed by Robert Jasmer, MD; Associate Clinical Professor of Medicine, University of California, San Francisco and Dorothy Caputo, MA, BSN, RN, Nurse Planner
Action Points
About 18% of lung cancers caught by low-dose CT screening were slow-growing tumors that wouldn't have affected patients during their lifetime.
Note that the study suggests that lung cancer screening programs should address the issue of overdiagnosis.
About 18% of lung cancers caught by low-dose CT screening were slow-growing tumors that wouldn't have affected patients during their lifetime, an analysis of the National Lung Screening Trial (NLST) showed.
That trial showed a mortality advantage to screening, but for every one lung cancer death prevented per 320 patients with screening in the trial, 1.38 cases of overdiagnosis would be expected, Edward F. Patz Jr., MD, of Duke University Medical Center, and colleagues found.
"These overdiagnosis cases represent an important potential harm of screening because they incur additional cost, anxiety, and morbidity associated with cancer treatment," they wrote online in JAMA Internal Medicine.
Patz and colleagues recommended that physicians include the risk of overdiagnosis in describing the risks of low-dose CT screening for lung cancer to patients.
While the findings may help shape patient expectations, they wouldn't likely shift the risk-benefit ratio much for individual patients, Patz suggested in an interview with MedPage Today.
Nor is the recent U.S. Preventive Services Task Force recommendation to screen high-risk patients annually likely to be affected, he argued.
"I don't think this will shift recommendations at all," he said. "It's just part of this entire puzzle we're trying to piece together, how we can best offer a mass screening program as public policy."
The American College of Radiology agreed, in a statement calling the overdiagnosis rate "modest" and in line with the projected rate with other types of cancer screening.
"Lung cancer screening using low-dose CT is the only test ever shown to reduce mortality in high-risk smokers, the leading cause of cancer death in the U.S. It does so cost effectively compared to other screening tests," the statement said. "Overdiagnosis is an expected part of any screening program and does not alter these facts."
http://www.medpagetoday.com/Pulmonology/LungCancer/43327?xid=nl_mpt_DHE_2013-12-10&utm_content=&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=DailyHeadlines&utm_source=WC&eun=g330076d0r&userid=330076&email=baileyif@yahoo.com&mu_id=5324077
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