Overdiagnosis in breast cancer screening: The impact of study design and calculations

Elsebeth Lynge; Anna-Belle Beau; Peer Christiansen; My von Euler-Chelpin; Niels Kroman; Sisse Njor; Ilse Vejborg

doi:10.1016/j.ejca.2017.04.018

Overdiagnosis in breast cancer screening: The impact of study design and calculations

Elsebeth Lynge, Anna-Belle Beau, Peer Christiansen, My von Euler-Chelpin, Niels Kroman, Sisse Njor, Ilse Vejborg

4 Citations (Scopus)

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Abstract

Overdiagnosis in breast cancer screening is an important issue. A recent study from Denmark concluded that one in three breast cancers diagnosed in screening areas in women aged 50-69 years were overdiagnosed. The purpose of this short communication was to disentangle the study's methodology in order to evaluate the soundness of this conclusion. We found that both the use of absolute differences as opposed to ratios; the sole focus on non-advanced tumours and the crude allocation of tumours and person-years by screening history for women aged 70-84 years, all contributed to the very high estimate of overdiagnosis. Screening affects cohorts of screened women. Danish registers allow very accurate mapping of the fate of every woman. We should be past the phase where studies of overdiagnosis are based on the fixed age groups from routine statistics.

Original language	English
Journal	European Journal of Cancer
Volume	80
Pages (from-to)	26-29
Number of pages	4
ISSN	0959-8049
DOIs	https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ejca.2017.04.018
Publication status	Published - Jul 2017

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title = "Overdiagnosis in breast cancer screening: The impact of study design and calculations",

abstract = "Overdiagnosis in breast cancer screening is an important issue. A recent study from Denmark concluded that one in three breast cancers diagnosed in screening areas in women aged 50-69 years were overdiagnosed. The purpose of this short communication was to disentangle the study's methodology in order to evaluate the soundness of this conclusion. We found that both the use of absolute differences as opposed to ratios; the sole focus on non-advanced tumours and the crude allocation of tumours and person-years by screening history for women aged 70-84 years, all contributed to the very high estimate of overdiagnosis. Screening affects cohorts of screened women. Danish registers allow very accurate mapping of the fate of every woman. We should be past the phase where studies of overdiagnosis are based on the fixed age groups from routine statistics.",

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T1 - Overdiagnosis in breast cancer screening

T2 - The impact of study design and calculations

AU - Lynge, Elsebeth

AU - Beau, Anna-Belle

AU - Christiansen, Peer

AU - von Euler-Chelpin, My

AU - Kroman, Niels

AU - Njor, Sisse

AU - Vejborg, Ilse

PY - 2017/7

Y1 - 2017/7

N2 - Overdiagnosis in breast cancer screening is an important issue. A recent study from Denmark concluded that one in three breast cancers diagnosed in screening areas in women aged 50-69 years were overdiagnosed. The purpose of this short communication was to disentangle the study's methodology in order to evaluate the soundness of this conclusion. We found that both the use of absolute differences as opposed to ratios; the sole focus on non-advanced tumours and the crude allocation of tumours and person-years by screening history for women aged 70-84 years, all contributed to the very high estimate of overdiagnosis. Screening affects cohorts of screened women. Danish registers allow very accurate mapping of the fate of every woman. We should be past the phase where studies of overdiagnosis are based on the fixed age groups from routine statistics.

AB - Overdiagnosis in breast cancer screening is an important issue. A recent study from Denmark concluded that one in three breast cancers diagnosed in screening areas in women aged 50-69 years were overdiagnosed. The purpose of this short communication was to disentangle the study's methodology in order to evaluate the soundness of this conclusion. We found that both the use of absolute differences as opposed to ratios; the sole focus on non-advanced tumours and the crude allocation of tumours and person-years by screening history for women aged 70-84 years, all contributed to the very high estimate of overdiagnosis. Screening affects cohorts of screened women. Danish registers allow very accurate mapping of the fate of every woman. We should be past the phase where studies of overdiagnosis are based on the fixed age groups from routine statistics.

U2 - 10.1016/j.ejca.2017.04.018

DO - 10.1016/j.ejca.2017.04.018

M3 - Journal article

C2 - 28535494

SN - 0959-8049

VL - 80

SP - 26

EP - 29

JO - European Journal of Cancer

JF - European Journal of Cancer

ER -

Overdiagnosis in breast cancer screening: The impact of study design and calculations

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