Medical screening

Abstract

Screening is early detection and early treatment of increased risk of chronic disease with the ultimate goal of improving the health of the screened. Today, early detection and early treatment occur often ‘haphazardly’ in routine clinical practice and general health checks rather than in systematic screening programmes. The success of a screening programme depends on the characteristics of the disease, testing, and treatments of early diagnosed patients. Screening can be made more cost-effective by screening in high-risk people, choosing a relatively high specificity, screening less frequently, and high management standards. The ultimate evaluation of the benefits and harms of screening must be drawn from randomized controlled trials. Randomized trials of various screening programmes and health checks in the past 50 years showed disappointingly screening was often ineffective or barely effective. This re-emphasizes the urgency of strengthening the criteria for introduction of new technologies for early diagnosis of disease.