Cancer tests may result to overtreatment and over diagnosis and only very few doctors inform their patients of this possibility, according to Philly.
Although cancer screenings are known to be beneficial in detecting cancer at an earlier stage, they are also known for effectively detecting cancers that will never progress and cause symptoms. Researchers involved in the study warned that the detection of slow-growing and non-progressive cancers may result to unnecessary surgery, chemotherapy and radiation.
"Usually when you talk to your doctor, you only learn about the benefits," said Odette Wegwarth, study author of the Max Planck Institute for Human Development in Berlin. "Nobody questions whether there could potentially be any harm," Wegwarth added. Wegwarth and study co-author Gerd Gigerenzer surveyed 317 American adults in their 50s and 60s. All of the participants have been invited by their doctors to undergo cancer screenings at least once in the past but none had been diagnosed with cancer.
Only 30 of the participants said that their doctor had brought up the chance of over diagnosis and overtreatment when talking about screening. 80 percent of the participants expressed their desire to be told about those potential harms. The findings published in the JAMA Internal Medicine showed that almost 59 percent of the participants said they would continue to undergo the routine cancer screening they already received even if they found out that the test results in 10 over treated people for every one person saved from cancer.
It's probably really difficult to make people understand that the screening they believe in can be sometimes bad too," Wegwarth told Reuters Health. "They believe in what they have been taught and told." "The results of the present study indicate that physicians' counseling on screening does not meet patients' standards," the study authors concluded.
