One more follow-up on overly aggressive cancer screening (see Screening for cancer and overdiagnosis and Creating an epidemic of cancer among the healthy). A recent study found that false-positive results of breast cancer screening create anxiety and undermine the patient’s quality of life for up to a year.
Here’s an excerpt from BusinessWeek:
“Common sense tells us that early detection of breast cancer is good, and most screening programs have been successful in reducing breast cancer deaths,” lead author Dr. Lideke van der Steeg, of the department of surgery at St. Elisabeth Hospital in Tilburg, said in a journal news release.
“However, while some women truly benefit from early detection, others experience harm and unnecessary anxiety. The women who received false-positives in our study experienced a significant reduction in their quality of life, especially if they were prone to anxiety, and the effects of this lasted at least a year.”
Women who received false-positive test results experienced a greater number of diagnostic procedures (such as biopsies) than those who were correctly diagnosed with breast cancer – 32% versus 14%. In the false-positive group, 55% of patients returned to a clinic for additional testing within the first year, some as many as eight times.
Among the false-positive patients, the multiple visits and screenings were associated with high levels of anxiety, which the researchers considered a direct result of having to undergo so many subsequent screenings and diagnostic exams.
Related posts:
Screening for cancer and overdiagnosis
Creating an epidemic of cancer among the healthy
The last well person
“I” Is for Innocent: Health obsession in fiction
Resources:
Image: Medic Exchange
Alan Mozes, Damage of ‘False-Positive’ Mammograms Overlooked: Study, BusinessWeek, January 18, 2011
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