Aspen Ideas Festival

How Useful is Medical Screening?

Science tells us that medical screening sometimes saves lives — but can also lead to overdiagnosis, overtreatment and medical harm. Screening can produce false positives, finding disease that isn’t there; false negatives, missing signs of very real disease; or ambiguous information that confounds patient and doctor alike.

How Useful is Medical Screening?

52m 41s

Science tells us that medical screening sometimes saves lives — but can also lead to overdiagnosis, overtreatment and medical harm. Screening can produce false positives, finding disease that isn’t there; false negatives, missing signs of very real disease; or ambiguous information that confounds patient and doctor alike.

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