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John bacon's avatar

Just attended a dinner party where the topic of early cancer screening came up and I was the only one at the table who wasn’t getting invasive “annual” screenings of my colon breast and cervix. The look of horror on everyone’s face was as if i had spat in the soup. I brought up the lack of impact on mortality and the horrors of false positives but it all fell on deaf ears. I appreciate you, Dr. Cifu, and your rational and measured approach to the analysis of the potential benefits AND harms for those of us who still have and use critical thinking skills and apply them to our healthcare decisions.

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Steve Cheung's avatar

The design section should read “run on total cohort of 4077 patients; 2823 patients had known cancers…”.

A screening test with the sensitivity of barely-better-than-a coin flip is patently useless. This test will be perfect for the worried well and those who cater to executive health care. Or maybe as an add-on to chelation for those who are into that sort of thing.

It seems, very roughly speaking and with exceptions that almost break any plausible rule, that the sensitivity might be better for detecting adeno carcinomas? As a DNA based test, is there any biologic plausibility for this?

Looking forward to next week’s entry to see what the number needed to screen will be in order to save one life. I’m guessing the answer will be along the order of “sh*t-tons”.

And as a cynic, I’d be curious about the financial backers of this outfit making this test. Any makers of MRI scanners bankrolling this thing?

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