ArticleJournal of the National Cancer Center2022
Cancer overdiagnosis: a challenge in the era of screening.
Article in Journal of the National Cancer Center, 2022. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 30 papers, 2 of them syntheses that pooled it.
What it found
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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.
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Who cites it
30 citing papers in PubMed, 2 syntheses or guidelines pooled it.
- Pooled it
- Assessing the Predictive Power of the Hemoglobin/Red Cell Distribution Width Ratio in Cancer: A Systematic Review and Future Directions.Medicina (Kaunas, Lithuania) · 2023Pooled it
- Article
- Public (un)willingness to trade-off benefits and harms in decisions about cancer screening: A discrete choice experiment.Journal of medical screening · 2026Article
- Cardiovascular disease incidence and cancer risk in two large European prospective cohorts.International journal of cancer · 2026Article
- Review
- Decoding the functional landscape of long non-coding RNAs in hepatocellular carcinoma: molecular mechanisms, clinical implications, and therapeutic prospects.Journal of the Egyptian National Cancer Institute · 2026Review
- Predictive Biomarkers for Asymptomatic Adults: Opportunities, Risks, and Guidance for General Practice.Diagnostics (Basel, Switzerland) · 2026Review
- Establishment of Integrated Hospital-Based Supportive and Palliative Services: An Experience from Iran.International journal of hematology-oncology and stem cell research · 2026Review
- Artificial intelligence-integrated wearable biomedical devices for cancer management.Journal of the National Cancer Center · 2025Review
- Changes in diagnostic evaluation of patients with lung cancer symptoms.NPJ primary care respiratory medicine · 2025Article
- Accelerating the elimination of global cervical cancer through intelligent training for colposcopy.Cancer biology & medicine · 2025Article
- Primary Care Clinician Preferences and Perspectives on Multi-Cancer Detection Testing Across an Integrated Healthcare System.Journal of personalized medicine · 2025Article
- Evidence categories in systematic assessment of cancer overdiagnosis.BMJ evidence-based medicine · 2025Review
- Socioeconomic Influences on Melanoma Incidence Patterns by Stage in the US.Journal of surgical oncology · 2025Article
- Diagnostic performance of contrast-enhanced ultrasound vs. conventional ultrasound for lymph node metastasis in patients with thyroid cancer: A meta-analysis.Oncology letters · 2025Article
- Global landscape of early-onset thyroid cancer: current burden, temporal trend and future projections on the basis of GLOBOCAN 2022.Journal of global health · 2025Article
- Congruence of cancer screening recommendations between the USPSTF and the top ten US cancer centers: a cross sectional study.EClinicalMedicine · 2025Article
- Advancing Breast Cancer Diagnosis: Optimization of Raman Spectroscopy for Urine-Based Early Detection.Biomedicines · 2025Article
- Quality, reliability, and dissemination of lung cancer information on short-video platforms in China: a cross-platform content analysis of TikTok, Kwai, and Rednote.Frontiers in public health · 2025Article
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
4 authors.
Funding
Abstract
"Screening" is a search for preclinical, asymptomatic disease, including cancer. Widespread cancer screening has led to large increases in early-stage cancers and pre-cancers. Ubiquitous public messages emphasize the potential benefits to screening for these lesions based on the underlying assumption that treating cancer at early stages before spread to other organs should make it easier to treat and cure, using more tolerable interventions. The intuition is so strong that public campaigns are sometimes launched without conducting definitive trials directly comparing screening to usual care. An effective cancer screening test should not only increase the incidence of early-stage preclinical disease but should also decrease the incidence of advanced and metastatic cancer, as well as a subsequent decrease in cancer-related mortality. Otherwise, screening efforts may be uncovering a reservoir of non-progressive and very slowly progressive lesions that were not destined to cause symptoms or suffering during the person's remaining natural lifespan: a phenomenon known as "overdiagnosis." We provide here a qualitative review of cancer overdiagnosis and discuss specific examples due to extensive population-based screening, including neuroblastoma, prostate cancer, thyroid cancer, lung cancer, melanoma, and breast cancer. The harms of unnecessary diagnosis and cancer therapy call for a balanced presentation to people considering undergoing screening, even with a test of accepted benefit, with a goal of informed decision-making. We also discuss proposed strategies to mitigate the adverse sequelae of overdiagnosis.
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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.