Advantages and disadvantages of medical screening

Advantages and disadvantages of medical screening

by Deleted user -
Number of replies: 0

Medical screening is the examination of individuals with no signs for a disease in order to detect those at higher risk of having or developing a disease. Its purpose is to identify the disease early for better interventions and management of the disease. It divides the people into two categories who are likely or unlikely to develop the disease. There are doubts whether screening is advantageous or not, but during the last decades it increased not only in the developed countries but also in the developing countries. In Egypt,  for example, during the last 10 years there was a huge campaign for breast cancer screening , and had a big success till the current moment.

                On one hand, breast cancer screening has advantages, such as:

  1. Early detection of cancer: As discovering the cancer when it is small increases the chances of successful treatment.
  2. Mortality reduction: breast cancer screening saves about 1400 lives per year in UK.
  3. Possibility of breast conserving surgery: Screening will help to find the cancer when it is small and this will help in having lumpectomy instead of mastectomy.

                On the other hand, there are disadvantages for the breast cancer screening , such as:

  1. It cannot prevent a cancer, as it only detect the breast cancer if it is there.
  2. Mammograms are uncomfortable: it is painful for some women and the pain might last from some time to few days.
  3. Mammograms involve radiation: even if it is small amount of radiation it is still questionable whether it is harmful or not.
  4. It gives sometimes false positive results which create unneeded worrying.
  5. Overdiagnosis which result in unnecessary  treatment.

                I think that breast cancer screening is effective and saved many lives all over the world, but I also think that researches are needed to detect and prevent the hazardous effects that might result from screening.