The perils of overdiagnosis

On the Social Construction of Overdiagnosis; Comment on “Medicalisation and Overdiagnosis: What Society Does to Medicine”

In an interesting article Wieteke van Dijk and colleagues argue that societal developments and values influence the practice of medicine, and thus can result in both medicalisation and overdiagnosis. They provide a convincing argument that overdiagnosis emerges in a social context and that it has socially constructed implications. However, they fail to show that overdiagnosis per se is socially...

The perils of snowmobiling.

Snowmobiling is a popular winter sport in Wisconsin, but it can result in serious injury and death. From 1998-2002, 1090 people in Wisconsin were hospitalized due to injuries related to snowmobiling. From 2002 to 2004, 51 snowmobile-related fatalities were reported to the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources. Multiple risk factors exist for snowmobile injury and death, with alcohol consump...

The Perils of Presidentialism

Solving the Problem of Overdiagnosis.

n engl j med 375;15 nejm.org October 13, 2016 1483 increasingly being placed on active surveillance,8 given that the reduction in death from prostate cancer (hazard ratio, 0.63; 95% CI, 0.36 to 1.09) in the Prostate Cancer Intervention versus Observation Trial (PIVOT) only trended toward significance (P = 0.09).9 However, the increasing use of surveillance is already of potential concern, consi...

The overdiagnosis of Lyme disease.

OBJECTIVE To analyze the diagnoses, serological test results, and treatment results of the patients evaluated in a Lyme disease clinic, both prior to referral and from current evaluation. DESIGN Retrospective case survey of prescreened patients. SETTING Research and diagnostic Lyme disease clinic in a university hospital. PATIENTS All 788 patients referred to the clinic during a 4.5-year ...