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Rishad Usmani: The Hidden Danger Of Early Cancer Screening

Photo taken from Rishad Usmani/LinkedIn

Aug 6, 2024, 16:35

Rishad Usmani: The Hidden Danger Of Early Cancer Screening

Health Tech Investors, shared a post on LinkedIn:

“With a high enough false positive rate, early cancer screening will be a net negative for humanity.

This is a statement which will be obvious to clinicians and will seem nonsensical to most others.

This is also the problem with whole body MRIs for cancer detection, the general public consensus thinking here is that routine whole body screening MRIs will help detect early cancer.

The primary problem with this approach is:

1. MRIs are not a diagnostic tool for cancer, they can only screen for possible cancer which then requires a biopsy for diagnosis.

2. The problem here isn’t necessarily that we don’t have enough data, there is little reason to think that by increasing the frequency of MRIs they will be able to then diagnose cancer.
We use pathology to diagnose cancer.

3. Pathology is distinctly different than MRI, it involves physically cutting the specimen and looking at it under a microscope with the help of various dyes/ stains.

4. The primary problem here is resolution and the absence of a corollary to the dyes/ stains used for cancer diagnosis.

5. MRIs are not the answer to cancer diagnosis, we need a tool which allows us cellular vision and possibly a replacement for the dyes/stains pathologists use.

6. Lastly, the problem with iterating post launch in healthcare is that is increase the probability of significant patient harm.
A high false positive rate leads to unnecessary biopsies which leads to an increase in complications (from these biopsies) ranging from infection to death.

7. We already know this from data in prostate cancer screening (with PSA) and it appears are repeating the same mistake again.”

Source: /LinkedIn