ReviewNPJ precision oncology2022
Polygenic risk scores to stratify cancer screening should predict mortality not incidence.
Review in NPJ precision oncology, 2022. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 11 papers.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
11 citing papers in PubMed, 10 citations in OpenAlex.
- Mechanisms of Progression and Challenges for Intervention in the Natural History of Early Prostate Cancer: A Narrative Review.Current oncology (Toronto, Ont.) · 2026Review
- Germline mutations and somatic mosaicism in steatotic liver diseases and related liver carcinogenesis.Nature reviews. Gastroenterology & hepatology · 2026Review
- Comparison of Results from the BARCODE1 Study and Contemporary Prostate Cancer Screening Trials.European urology oncology · 2026Article
- AI-driven integration of genomic and exposome data for cancer risk: the combined risk score (CRS).Human genomics · 2026Review
- Polygenic risk score and 20-year prostate cancer-specific mortality and survival.Communications medicine · 2026Article
- Exploring current cancer screening practices and guidelines for adults under age 50 in the United States.Frontiers in public health · 2026Article
- Polygenic Risk Score Is Associated with Developing and Dying from Lung Cancer in the National Lung Screening Trial.Journal of clinical medicine · 2025Article
- Predictive value of polygenic risk score for prostate cancer incidence and prognosis in the Han Chinese.Scientific reports · 2024Article
- Polygenic risk scores for cervical HPV infection, neoplasia and cancer show potential for personalised screening: comparison of two methods.Infectious agents and cancer · 2023Article
- Development and testing of a polygenic risk score for breast cancer aggressiveness.NPJ precision oncology · 2023Article
- Realistic expectations are key to realising the benefits of polygenic scores.BMJ (Clinical research ed.) · 2023Article
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
4 authors at 2 institutions in 2 countries.
Funding
Abstract
Population-based cancer screening programs such as mammography or colonscopy generally directed at all healthy individuals in a given age stratum. It has recently been proposed that cancer screening could be restricted to a high-risk subgroup based on polygenic risk scores (PRSs) using panels of single-nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs). These PRSs were, however, generated to predict cancer incidence rather than cancer mortality and will not necessarily address overdiagnosis, a major problem associated with cancer screening programs. We develop a simple net-benefit framework for evaluating screening approaches that incorporates overdiagnosis. We use this methodology to demonstrate that if a PRS does not differentially discriminate between incident and lethal cancer, restricting screening to a subgroup with high scores will only improve screening outcomes in a small number of scenarios. In contrast, restricting screening to a subgroup defined as high-risk based on a marker that is more strongly predictive of mortality than incidence will often afford greater net benefit than screening all eligible individuals. If PRS-based cancer screening is to be effective, research needs to focus on identifying PRSs associated with cancer mortality, an unchartered and clinically-relevant area of research, with a much higher potential to improve screening outcomes.
Identifiers
What OpenQuestion holds
Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.