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Editorials |7 March 2017

Accepting the Existence of Breast Cancer Overdiagnosis

Otis W. Brawley, MD

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This article was published at Annals.org on 10 January 2017.
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Jørgensen and colleagues (1) compare breast cancer incidence and death rates in several areas of Denmark where screening was introduced at various times in the 1990s. Although the incidence of localized disease increased with the introduction of screening, the incidence of advanced disease has not decreased. They estimate that screen-detected breast tumors have an overdiagnosis rate of 14.7% to 38.6% (excluding ductal carcinoma in situ). This is the latest of several studies using various methods and data sets to show that the phenomenon of overdiagnosis exists in breast cancer. Estimates of this overdiagnosis rate vary but range up to 54% of screen-detected localized tumors, with most estimates between 15% and 25% (2).
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Brawley OW. Accepting the Existence of Breast Cancer Overdiagnosis. Ann Intern Med. ;166:364–365. doi: 10.7326/M16-2850

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Published: Ann Intern Med. 2017;166(5):364-365.

DOI: 10.7326/M16-2850

Published at www.annals.org on 10 January 2017

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2017 American College of Physicians
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