A big study found that when doctors removed a certain type of lung growth from their numbers, very few people were unnecessarily diagnosed with cancer from CT scans — which is the opposite of what some experts thought would happen.

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Evidence from Studies

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Overdiagnosis in lung cancer screening

Narrative Review

2021 Feb

This study says that when doctors used CT scans to find lung cancer early, they didn’t find nearly as many harmless cancers as people feared — which means the scans are mostly catching real, dangerous cancers, not ones that would never hurt you.

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According to GRADE and EBM methodology, here is what ideal scientific evidence would look like to definitively prove or disprove this specific claim, ordered from strongest to weakest evidence.

Source Study

Overdiagnosis in lung cancer screening

Score: 1

DOI: 10.21037/tlcr-20-736

Similar Assertions

When lung cancer is found through a special low-dose CT scan, almost 8 out of 10 of a certain type of tumor might be harmless and would never hurt the person if left alone—only the scan found it, and it wouldn’t have caused any problems otherwise.

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When doctors use a low-dose CT scan to check high-risk people for lung cancer, about 1 in 5 of the cancers they find might never have caused any problems — meaning those people could be treated for something that didn’t need treating, leading to stress, side effects, and extra costs.

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When doctors use a special low-dose CT scan to find lung cancer early, about 1 in 5 of the cancers they find might never cause harm — meaning the person would never have known about them if not for the scan, and they wouldn’t need treatment.

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