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Americans Get Too Many Colonoscopies
submitted by: admin on 05/12/2015
Gastroenterologists and the American Society for Gastroenterology recommend screening colonoscopies begin at age 50 and be repeated every 10 years unless there is a special indication for more often. However, the United States Preventive Services Task Force (USPSTF) is questioning this recommendation.
A study published in the September 2014 issue of...
Do Familial Precancerous Polyps Predict Colon Cancer?
submitted by: admin on 06/18/2016
When do you need a colonoscopy? An article in Annals of Internal Medicine in May of 2012 stated that there's insufficient evidence to recommend earlier or more frequent colonoscopies for people who have a first degree relative with a precancerous polyp unless the polyp is advanced. About 30-50% of people have polyps that are precancerous, but only 5-10% warrant...
Five Screening Tests for Heart Disease You May Not Need
submitted by: admin on 04/12/2015
There is no good evidence that if a person is symptom free that any of the common tests that screen for heart disease are helpful according to the US Preventive Services Task Force (USPSTF). Even for people who smoke or those with diabetes or obesity there's no good evidence that heart screening tests save lives or prevent disease. These tests...
Medical Guidelines Questioned
submitted by: admin on 10/11/2013
According to an article published in the October 2012 issue of Archives of Internal Medicine, most medical guidelines are based on opinion and weak data. They do not follow the standards set by the Institute of Medicine.
In a study of 130 guidelines, fewer than half met even 10 of their 18 standards. Fewer than half stated whether conflicts of...
Ownership Spurs Unnecessary MRI Tests
submitted by: admin on 09/30/2013
A study published in September of 2013 in the journal, Radiology, looked at the number of knee MRIs that were ordered by MDs with ownership in the MRI facility and those that did not, and found that about 33% more were ordered by those with ownership.
Medical practice has become a business, and income is the bottom line for for a business. We believe...
Preventive Medicine Saves Money but Early Detection May Not
submitted by: admin on 10/14/2013
Seventy five percent of health care spending is for preventable chronic diseases. If you can prevent these diseases from occurring, it stands to reason that it will cost far less to deal with them. However, there is massive confusion about what preventive medicine is. What it is not is early detection.
Preventive medicine requires living a healthy...
Should Screening Tests for Cancer be Limited in the Elderly?
submitted by: admin on 09/01/2014
A study out of the University of North Carolina Medical Center in August of 2014 studied more than 27,000 patients over the age of 65 and questioned the widsom of doing routine cancer screening tests, especially if they had a limited life expectancy. They looked at screening tests for prostate, breast, colon, and cervix in a study from 2000 through 2010 and compared...
Sigmoidoscopy an Option for Colon Cancer Screening
submitted by: admin on 06/18/2016
The May of 2012 issue of the New England Journal of Medicine reports that sigmoidoscopy rather than colonoscopy could be used to screen for colon cancer. A clinical trial of 150,000 people was done where half had sigmoidoscopy and the other have nothing. They were followed over 12 years and over that interval there were 89 fewer cancer deaths and 275 more colon...
The Mammography Industry is Clinging to a Failed Test for Women Under Fifty
submitted by: admin on 06/18/2016
Let's face it. Mammograms are far from a perfect test, especially in women under the age of 50, and particularly in women with fibrocystic breasts. The United States Preventive Task Force no longer recommends screening women routinely for breast cancer with mammograms. There has been a flood of complaining from the American Cancer Society and the...
Why Doctors Over-diagnose and Over-Treat Blood Pressure
submitted by: admin on 01/05/2015
The United States Preventive Task Force reviewed 27 studies in February of 2014 to determine the benefits and harms of screening for high blood pressure and concluded that office blood pressure readings are not accurate about half of the time. This leads to over-diagnosis and over-treatment of blood pressure. For this reason they recommended ambulatory blood...
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