Hacker News new | past | comments | ask | show | jobs | submit login

I am not saying that "no random blood test has ever uncovered any dangerous disease", which is obviously not true. I am saying that when aggregated, on average many of the screening tests, including yearly bloodwork have more negative effects than positive.

The fact that your father got diagnosed too late is incredibly sad, and I truly feel for you, as that's the disease that took my grandfather too. But that does not offset the fact that if you screen people "yearly" you end up with more unnecessary interventions, painful tests, and potential false positives, and generally bad outcomes than if you don't do it.

You could just as easily find a story about someone who had an unnecessary blood test that revealed something potentially troubling, they went to have a more invasive tests that resulted in them getting hurt from treating what turned out to be a false positive.




Yes thats definitely true. The PSA test i mentioned is one such example of blood test causing over treatment. I think they used to start PSA tests at 40 but now they start much later because it was causing over diagnosis.




Guidelines | FAQ | Lists | API | Security | Legal | Apply to YC | Contact

Search: