Overdiagnosis, Overdone: A Patient Summary
by Constantine Kaniklidis *, Research Director, No Surrender Breast Cancer Foundation (NSBCF) **
Understanding – and Measuring – Overdiagnosis Overdiagnosis occurs when the patient, were it not for screening, would have died of some other non-cancer cause without ever having been diagnosed with malignancy. Overdiagnosis estimates are fraught with many complex limitations and challenges, but overdiagnosis estimates can be “normalized” by drawing on only studies restricted to actual screening-attendant women (as opposed to only screening-invited women) and which also control for the major known confounding factors. The EUROSCREEN review (2 million women age 50 or older in 18 countries) which met these requirements found overdiagnosis as being just 6.5%, and autopsy studies find only a small degree of overdiagnosis (under 10% total, just 1.3% for invasive breast cancers only).