Signals of overdiagnosis

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• Format Videos
• Language/s English
• Target Audience Further education
• EBM Stage 3 - Appraising evidence
• Duration 5-15 mins
• Difficulty Intermediate

Key Concepts addressed

• 1-2j Earlier is not necessarily better

Details

Gilbert Welch’s 8-min video showing how population screening for disease leads to overdiagnosis, illustrating how ‘earlier treatment is not necessarily better treatment’.
The population signals of overdiagnosis are:

• Rising disease incidence with unchanging mortality
• Increase in early stage disease with little decrease in late stage disease
• Substantial increase in small tumours with little decrease in larger tumours.

These patterns are illustrated with data about thyroid cancer, melanoma, kidney cancer, and breast cancer.