Overdiagnosis in lung cancer screening

Overdiagnosis in cancer screening is the detection of cancers that would not have become clinically apparent if the person had not been screened. Diagnosis of cancer causes anxiety, and treatment often causes physical harm. For individuals with overdiagnosed cancer, these harms occur without any benefits. There are two major contributors to overdiagnosis: indolent cancers and competing causes of death. In practice, there is a spectrum of...