Skip to main page content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Dot gov

The .gov means it’s official.
Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you’re on a federal government site.

Https

The site is secure.
The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

Access keys NCBI Homepage MyNCBI Homepage Main Content Main Navigation
Editorial
. 2014 Sep;29(9):1218-20.
doi: 10.1007/s11606-014-2867-0.

Oversimplifying overdiagnosis

Ruth Etzioni  1 , Roman Gulati
Affiliations
Editorial

Oversimplifying overdiagnosis

Ruth Etzioni et al. J Gen Intern Med. 2014 Sep.
No abstract available

PubMed Disclaimer

Figures

Figure 1.
Figure 1.
Schematic illustration of overdiagnosis of progressive, indolent, and regressive cancers detected by screening. Shaded boxes indicate windows of detectability. The lead time is the time from screen detection to the point at which disease would have presented clinically in the absence of screening. In the case of progressive cancer, overdiagnosis occurs when other-cause death happens during the lead time. Therefore, the longer the lead time, the greater the chance of overdiagnosis. Indolent or persistent cancers and regressive cancers never reach the point of clinical presentation; thus, they are always overdiagnosed.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

Comment on

References

    1. Zahl PH, Jorgensen KJ, Gotzsche CO. Lead-time models should not be used to estimate overdiagnosis in cancer screening. J Gen Intern Med doi:10.1007/s11606-014-2812.2. - PMC - PubMed
    1. Etzioni R, Gulati R, Mallinger L, Mandelblatt J. Influence of study features and methods on overdiagnosis estimates in breast and prostate cancer screening. Ann Intern Med 2013;158:831–8. PMC: 3733533. - PMC - PubMed
    1. Biesheuvel C, Barratt A, Howard K, Houssami N, Irwig L. Effects of study methods and biases on estimates of invasive breast cancer over detection with mammography screening: a systematic review. Lancet Oncol 2007;8:1129–38. PMC. - PubMed
    1. Duffy SW, Parmar D. Overdiagnosis in breast cancer screening: the importance of length of observation period and lead time. Breast Cancer Res 2013;15:R41. PMC: 3706885. - PMC - PubMed
    1. Miller AB, Wall C, Baines CJ, Sun P, To T, Narod SA. Twenty-five year follow-up for breast cancer incidence and mortality of the Canadian National Breast Screening Study: randomized screening trial. BMJ 2014;348:g366. PMC: 3921437. - PMC - PubMed

MeSH terms

LinkOut - more resources