A light-hearted article highlighting issues related to D2C genetic testing, including benefits versus harms. Delve into the world of John, a 32 year old father of two who has been troubled by excess earwax since childhood... Semsarian C, Moynihan R. The Christmas gift of [...]
Autopsy studies of women not known to have breast disease during life demonstrated large amounts of incidental breast cancer and precursors. Incidental invasive breast cancer was found consistently across studies, even where few sections of tissue were examined microscopically. Incidental in-situ cancer and atypical [...]
New research published in the Journal of Gerontology has found that there are new ways to characterise older people who take multiple medicines and those who are open to “deprescribing”. This is where medicines are reviewed with a view to reducing or stopping less [...]
In October 2016 the French minister of health released the report of an independent inquiry into mammography screening in France. The inquiry Steering Committee recommended two options for the future: End the national breast screening program, or end it in its current form and [...]
We previously found in a randomised controlled trial that informing women about overdetection (also known as overdiagnosis) changed their breast screening decisions. This new paper presents a mediation analysis exploring possible psychological pathways through which exposure to overdetection information influenced women’s subsequently reported breast [...]
While genetic testing for Mendelian disease can have enormous value, care must be taken to avoid unnecessary harm. As genetic technologies continue to advance and access to all forms of genetic testing becomes more commonplace, all primary care physicians will need to understand the [...]
Screening for breast cancer may lead to both benefit (fewer breast cancer deaths) and harm (overdiagnosis of cancers that would never cause problems, and false alarms where no cancer is present). Decision aids are tools to help women understand the trade-offs and consider their [...]
Changing the terminology of low risk, screen detected conditions such as ductal carcinoma in situ (DCIS), low risk prostate cancer, and low risk thyroid cancer has been recommended by several expert groups. These recommendations are to help prevent overdiagnosis and allow patients diagnosed with [...]
There is a groundswell of new research directly measuring inappropriate or low-value health care. We reviewed studies where a low-value service was measured by defining the service and the low-value patient indication, with the goal of comparing results across different populations for the same [...]
Widening diagnostic criteria has resulted in a steep rise in the number of women diagnosed with Polycystic Ovary Syndrome (PCOS). The benefits of receiving this diagnosis are unclear, in particular for younger women and those with milder symptoms. We looked at the clinical literature [...]