I think it cuts both ways though, over-testing vs under-testing, as the question is when do people actually get access to imaging, and is there more pro-active imaging screening we should have done.
A good friend recently had an unrelated routine surgical procedure go awry, that lead to a CT scan to check on the damage. The CT scan ended up finding stage 2 cancer, larger than a billiard ball, in an organ that is going to be surgically removed. Our friend had absolutely no symptoms of any kind related to the cancer. There is no reason he would have gotten a CT scan other than the unrelated surgical accident. Imagine in 5 years he finally had had some symptoms, they do the scan & and find its stage 4, sorry.
The fact that we only have routine screening regiments for a handful of cancers (breast, colon, prostate, skin) is something that I've been thinking about a lot lately.
Yes. And the balance between under testing and some loss of early treatable detection and over testing with some incurring unneeded operations is a hard one. Everyone tends to the over test side. For some things like knee operations the evidence appears strong that surgery is the worst path to take in most cases. Surgery stems from improving imaging of knee joint tissue. Treatment regimes need to catch up to return to a sweet spot of detection and remediation.
My partner feels her breast tissue calcification detected in improving imaging of annual checks should have been left alone and incurred discomfort and scarring she didn't need, but we both know breast cancer survivors who owe their life to detection and intervention
A good friend recently had an unrelated routine surgical procedure go awry, that lead to a CT scan to check on the damage. The CT scan ended up finding stage 2 cancer, larger than a billiard ball, in an organ that is going to be surgically removed. Our friend had absolutely no symptoms of any kind related to the cancer. There is no reason he would have gotten a CT scan other than the unrelated surgical accident. Imagine in 5 years he finally had had some symptoms, they do the scan & and find its stage 4, sorry.
The fact that we only have routine screening regiments for a handful of cancers (breast, colon, prostate, skin) is something that I've been thinking about a lot lately.