ArticleBMJ open2019
Evaluation of the overdiagnosis in breast screening programmes using a Monte Carlo simulation tool: a study of the influence of the parameters defining the programme configuration.
Article in BMJ open, 2019. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 4 papers.
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Who cites it
4 citing papers in PubMed.
- Influence of follow-up, screening age, interval, and compliance on overdiagnosis of ductal carcinoma in situ (DCIS): A modelling study.PloS one · 2026Article
- The natural history of ductal carcinoma in situ: development, validation, and estimated outcomes of the SimDCIS model.Breast cancer research and treatment · 2025Article
- Evaluation of optimal strategies for breast cancer screening in Ghana: A simulation study based on a continuous tumor growth model.PloS one · 2025Article
- Simulation approach for common female cancers: a brief review.Frontiers in oncology · 2025Review
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
4 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
objectivesTo build up and test a Monte Carlo simulation procedure for the investigation of overdiagnosis in breast screening programmes (BSPs).
designA Monte Carlo tool previously developed has been adapted for obtaining the quantities of interest in order to determine the overdiagnosis: the annual and cumulative number of cancers detected by screening, plus interval cancers, for a population following the BSP, and detected clinically for the same population in the absence of screening. Overdiagnosis is obtained by comparing these results in a direct way.
resultsOverdiagnosis between 7% and 20%, depending on the specific configuration of the programme, have been found. These range of values is in agreement with some of the results available for actual BSPs. In the cases analysed, a reduction of 11% at most has been found in the number of invasive tumours detected by screening in comparison to those clinically detected in the control population. It has been possible to establish that overdiagnosis is almost entirely linked to ductal carcinoma in situ tumours.
conclusionsThe use of Monte Carlo tools may facilitate the analysis of overdiagnosis in actual BSPs, permitting to address the role played by various quantities of relevance for them.
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