Cancer Screening may not be as Effective, a new Study Claims

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Jan 08, 2016 05:30 AM EST

A new analysis from American and German health experts reveal that the benefits of cancer screening, is, in fact, overstated and that further studies are needed to determine of they truly save lives, The Guardian reports.

The analysis was led by Dr. Vinay Prasad of Oregon Health and Science University, who revealed that while cancer screening may be linked to fewer deaths from tumors, screening does not necessarily save lives when deaths from all causes are taken into account.

Reuters reports that according to researchers, one study has found 128 cancer deaths among every 10,000 people who had themselves screened compared to 192 cancer deaths among every 10,000 who did not get screened. This statistic is for colorectal cancer alone.

For breast cancer, Swiss data showed that cancer screening can avert one breast cancer death for every 1,000 women who undergoes screening. Prasad commented, "There used to be ads saying if a woman hadn’t had a mammogram, she needed more than her breasts examined. The fact that the medical profession promoted screening so strongly, when it was always a balancing act, when it was always a personal choice, is really shameful."

Moreover, researchers studied 53,000 heavy smokers to further prove their theory, FOX News reports. Half of the participants received standard chest x-rays, while the other half got sensitive CT scans. The latter group had a 20% reduced risk for death by lung cancer and a 6.7% decrease in overall mortality compared to their counterparts who had an x-ray.

Prasad said, "It is clearly the case that some deaths unrelated to cancer are due to screening, whether from complications of procedures or treatment of cancer."

Reuters reports that Prasad believes many cancers are overdiagnosed and that some screenings present a "false positive". He said, "Because of screening, a person may undergo surgery, radiation, chemotherapy and more to treat it—all those treatments have side effects."

TIME reports that Prasad isn't the only health expert who believes that it's about time that cancer screening is looked at in a different light. Robert Smith, vice president of cancer screening at the American Cancer Society told TIME, "We need to make sure the screening or treatment isn’t causing collateral damage. While we applaud the fact that screening may reduce the risk of dying [of cancer] by 30%, we need to make sure that we are not increasing the risk of dying by 30% due to the screening or treatment itself."

"We do need to do a better job of not only communicating both the upside and the downside but in making sure people really understand what that means," Smith concluded.

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