TY - JOUR
T1 - Overdiagnosis in breast cancer screening
T2 - The impact of study design and calculations
AU - Lynge, Elsebeth
AU - Beau, Anna-Belle
AU - Christiansen, Peer
AU - von Euler-Chelpin, My
AU - Kroman, Niels
AU - Njor, Sisse
AU - Vejborg, Ilse
N1 - Copyright © 2017 The Author(s). Published by Elsevier Ltd.. All rights reserved.
PY - 2017/7
Y1 - 2017/7
N2 - Overdiagnosis in breast cancer screening is an important issue. A recent study from Denmark concluded that one in three breast cancers diagnosed in screening areas in women aged 50-69 years were overdiagnosed. The purpose of this short communication was to disentangle the study's methodology in order to evaluate the soundness of this conclusion. We found that both the use of absolute differences as opposed to ratios; the sole focus on non-advanced tumours and the crude allocation of tumours and person-years by screening history for women aged 70-84 years, all contributed to the very high estimate of overdiagnosis. Screening affects cohorts of screened women. Danish registers allow very accurate mapping of the fate of every woman. We should be past the phase where studies of overdiagnosis are based on the fixed age groups from routine statistics.
AB - Overdiagnosis in breast cancer screening is an important issue. A recent study from Denmark concluded that one in three breast cancers diagnosed in screening areas in women aged 50-69 years were overdiagnosed. The purpose of this short communication was to disentangle the study's methodology in order to evaluate the soundness of this conclusion. We found that both the use of absolute differences as opposed to ratios; the sole focus on non-advanced tumours and the crude allocation of tumours and person-years by screening history for women aged 70-84 years, all contributed to the very high estimate of overdiagnosis. Screening affects cohorts of screened women. Danish registers allow very accurate mapping of the fate of every woman. We should be past the phase where studies of overdiagnosis are based on the fixed age groups from routine statistics.
U2 - 10.1016/j.ejca.2017.04.018
DO - 10.1016/j.ejca.2017.04.018
M3 - Journal article
C2 - 28535494
VL - 80
SP - 26
EP - 29
JO - European Journal of Cancer, Supplement
JF - European Journal of Cancer, Supplement
SN - 0959-8049
ER -