mikedilger on Nostr: Screening for early forms of disease can lead to good outcomes (if they found ...
Screening for early forms of disease can lead to good outcomes (if they found something important) but also bad outcomes (found something, not sure, let's operate!). It is a tricky business.
There exists the possibility for overdiagnosis or misdiagnosis. And some studies on screening have found that some kinds of screening actually statistically lead to worse outcomes due to these... that the damage done by misdiagnoses exceeds even the damage of the disease they were screening for! And so in those cases the case was made not to do such screenings.
There is also that false sense of security you get when you have a clean bill of health: "it is okay for me to eat more cake and finish this bottle of wine because I'm still healthy." It may be better if you didn't know you were healthy.
I'm not a doctor or nor involved in the health industry. Caveat emptor. drgo (npub1fa8…thnd)
There exists the possibility for overdiagnosis or misdiagnosis. And some studies on screening have found that some kinds of screening actually statistically lead to worse outcomes due to these... that the damage done by misdiagnoses exceeds even the damage of the disease they were screening for! And so in those cases the case was made not to do such screenings.
There is also that false sense of security you get when you have a clean bill of health: "it is okay for me to eat more cake and finish this bottle of wine because I'm still healthy." It may be better if you didn't know you were healthy.
I'm not a doctor or nor involved in the health industry. Caveat emptor. drgo (npub1fa8…thnd)