Article Text
PDF
Statistics from Altmetric.com
The risk of overdiagnosis in lung cancer screening
Screening for lung cancer has been proposed on the principle that tumours will be detected at a smaller size and earlier stage, resulting in a reduction in lung cancer mortality. This study (JAMA Intern Med doi:10.1001/jamainternmed.2013.12738) reviewed data from the National Lung Screening Trial to calculate the rates of excess cancers in the LDCT versus CXR arm for all lung cancers and various histological subtypes. The probability was 18.5% that any lung cancer detected by screening with LDCT in the National Lung Screening Trial was an overdiagnosis. Overdiagnosis represents an important potential harm of screening because it incurs unnecessary cost, anxiety and morbidity associated with cancer treatment.
A sputum biomarker for COPD?
Proline-glycine-proline (PGP) is a neutrophil chemoattractant derived from the enzymatic breakdown of collagen and is elevated in the sputum of patients with COPD. This study (BMJ Open;3:e004140doi:10.1136/bmjopen-2013-004140) was conducted ancillary to a multicentre, prospective, parallel group, placebo-controlled, double-blind study of the efficacy of azithromycin in the chronic outpatient management of COPD. The aim was to …
Footnotes
-
Competing interests None.
-
Provenance and peer review Not commissioned; internally peer reviewed.