Patients report not being told of risk of overdiagnosis in cancer screenings

Cancer screenings can find treatable disease at an earlier stage but they can also detect cancers that will never progress to cause symptoms. Detection of these early, slow-growing cancers can lead to unnecessary surgery, chemotherapy and radiation, the authors write in the study background.

Researchers conducted an online survey of 317 U.S. men and women ages 50 to 69 years to find out how many patients had been informed of overdiagnosis and overtreatment by their physicians and how much overdiagnosis they would tolerate when deciding whether to start or continue screening.

Of the group, 9.5 percent of the study participants (n=30) reported their physicians had told them about the possibility of overdiagnosis and overtreatment. About half (51 percent) of the participants reported that they were unprepared to start a screening that results in more than one overtreated person per one life saved from cancer death. However, nearly 59 percent reported they would continue the cancer screening they receive regularly even if they learned that the test results in 10 overtreated people per one life saved from cancer death.

"The results of the present study indicate that physicians' counseling on screening does not meet patients' standards," the study concludes.