The Epidemic of Fake Disease

Medlife Crisis

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Does screening for diseases like cancer even work? Trying to detect disease early seems like an obviously good thing to do. But reality isn't always quite so straightforward, especially in medicine. If It Ducks Like A Quack is a series where I try to go beyond the hype and explore how complicated the apparently simple phenomena in medicine are. DISCLAIMER: Please do not construe this video as medical advice. You have no idea if I know what I'm talking about. I could be a complete clown. However, do check out the references below if you want to learn more.

Suggested reading: The Patient Paradox by Margaret McCartney - https://www.amazon.co.uk/Patient-Para...​Overdiagnosed by H Gilbert Welch - https://www.amazon.co.uk/Overdiagnose...​References: Overdiagnosis in cancer - https://academic.oup.com/jnci/article...​How 5 year survival can mislead - https://www.bmj.com/content/346/bmj.f548​Are increasing 5-year survival rates evidence of success against cancer? - https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/1...​Why cancer screening has never been shown to “save lives”—and what we can do about it - https://www.bmj.com/content/352/bmj.h...​Incidentalomas - https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/2...​Thyroid cancer - https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/2...​The NELSON lung cancer screening trial - https://www.nejm.org/doi/pdf/10.1056/...