The Study
South Korea's Thyroid-Cancer "Epidemic"--Turning the Tide.
This article is like a doctor writing a letter saying, 'Hey, I noticed fewer people are getting their thyroids cut out after TV shows talked about it.' But they didn’t run an experiment — so we can’t say the TV shows caused the drop, just that they happened around the same time.
Analysis score
Maximum 0 for a editorial/opinion.
Where the score came from
Doctors found lots of tiny, harmless thyroid lumps in healthy people using ultrasounds and cut them out — but it didn’t save lives. When the public learned these lumps were usually harmless, fewer people got surgery.
Where does this study sit?
Reviews of RCTs (Meta-analyses)
Max 100Randomized Trials
Max 90Reviews of Cohort Studies
Max 85Cohort Studies
Max 72Reviews of Case-Control Studies
Max 63Case-Control Studies
Max 58Cross-Sectional & Case Series
Max 50Expert Opinion
Max 50 / 100
Quality score
Based on clinical experience or non-systematic literature reviews. The lowest level of evidence as they are most susceptible to bias and personal perspective.
Key takeaways
Summary
Based on the study abstract and findings.
- 1Yes — it means many people were getting unnecessary surgery for cancers that would never hurt them.
- 2Diagnoses rose 15x from 1993–2011; surgeries dropped 35% after 2014; death rates stayed the same.
Score breakdown, methodology, conflicts of interest, evidence analysis & raw study data
Publication
Journal
The New England journal of medicine
Year
2015
Authors
H. Ahn, H. Welch
Related Content
Claims (5)
In South Korea, more people are being told they have thyroid cancer than before, but not fewer people are dying from it — which means many of those new diagnoses might be for cancers that wouldn’t have hurt them anyway.
In South Korea, many people and doctors didn’t want to stop checking for thyroid cancer so often, even when it might not be needed—some even said it was a right everyone should have, suggesting that money and institutions might be pushing unnecessary tests.
In South Korea, more people were diagnosed with thyroid cancer between 1993 and 2011—not because more people were getting sick, but because doctors started using ultrasound scans to check everyone’s necks, even if they felt fine, and found lots of tiny, harmless tumors that would never have caused problems.
After South Korea ran public campaigns about thyroid cancer in 2014, a lot fewer people got surgery for it—down by about a third in just one year. This makes people think that talking more about overdiagnosis might help stop unnecessary surgeries.
In 2015, South Korea decided not to routinely scan healthy people’s necks with ultrasound to check for thyroid cancer, because they thought it wasn’t helpful for most people.
Not medical advice. For informational purposes only. Always consult a qualified healthcare professional before making health decisions.