Talk:Cancer screening

Reference
This article is in need of references. Here is a nice one from AFP.

--David Iberri (talk) 01:19, 20 May 2009 (UTC)

Deletion
We really need a page discussing cancer screening. Just do not have the energy to write it.-- Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 23:58, 16 June 2009 (UTC)

Screening in over 70s
Not sure about the line about screening having uncertain benefits in over 70s. I think the evidence shows benefits to breast and colorectal cancer screening in over 70s.

Hln2011 (talk) 13:33, 28 March 2011 (UTC)

Statements in article fail verification, update needed
The following, "There is general agreement in the scientific community that breast screening reduces mortality from the disease." is most decidedly NOT in the citation given. In addition the reference given has been updated here. Both the original reference and the update indicate the exact opposite of what is stated to my reading.

The following, "The U.S. Preventative Services Task Force (USPSTF) strongly recommends cervical cancer screening in American women who are sexually active and have a cervix at least until the age of 65, usually every three years." does not accurately reflect the source which specifically "recommends against screening for cervical cancer in women younger than age 21 years". It does "recommends screening for cervical cancer in women ages 21 to 65 years with cytology (Pap smear) every 3 years or, for women ages 30 to 65 years who want to lengthen the screening interval, screening with a combination of cytology and human papillomavirus (HPV) testing every 5 years." but, "recommends against screening for cervical cancer with HPV testing, alone or in combination with cytology, in women younger than age 30 years."

The following, "According to the U.S. Preventative Services Task Force (USPSTF), there is insufficient evidence to recommend for or against screening for lung cancer." needs to be updated to reflect, "The USPSTF recommends annual screening for lung cancer with low-dose computed tomography in adults ages 55 to 80 years who have a 30 pack-year smoking history and currently smoke or have quit within the past 15 years. Screening should be discontinued once a person has not smoked for 15 years or develops a health problem that substantially limits life expectancy or the ability or willingness to have curative lung surgery."

Fortunately the USPSTF links automatically point to the most recent recommendations. The breast cancer screening info really needs to be updated to highest quality MEDRS compliance (the controversy can be at the main article). The cervical and lung cancer screening info should be accurate and current. I did a little work on the other USPSTF recs and have placed appropriate tags. - - MrBill3 (talk) 04:36, 18 July 2014 (UTC)
 * You are doing a lot of referencing updating, I see, which is great, but you seem to be if anything reinforcing the US-bias in the article and its sources, which is already excessive. Screening is an issue which, more than most medical things, varies considerably internationally, with economic and quasi-political aspects, and this should be bourne in mind. As it is the article might as well be called Cancer screening in the United States. As for the points above - why not just put them in? Generally I think the best approach for the individual cancers is to update the section in each cancer article, & then more or less copy it here. Wiki CRUK John (talk) 11:28, 18 July 2014 (UTC)
 * I have just updated existing references and a few of the facts attributed to them. I have not removed any existing refs or expanded any content. Surely you can't be objecting to using the most up to date version of references already used in an article??? It would be less US biased if out of date references were retained?
 * You may have gotten the idea I was adding to US bias because I moved content from the "Other cancers" section which dealt with prostate cancer to the (existing) "Prostate cancer" section.
 * I agree with the basic idea of maintaining the main articles for individual cancers and basically copying over, but it seems some updates are not carried over. In regards to breast cancer screening, the main article is a mess (same thing repeated three times etc.) and as the subject is controversial I was hoping an editor with more knowledge/experience in editing in this subject would step up (hint, hint).
 * I also agree that the article is too US centric (of note the updated ref I link to above is Cochrane not USPSTF). I welcome you to add some content based on something more than USPSTF. As the NHS has a major breast cancer screening program, I'm sure theres material out there for at least that.
 * My object in working a (very) little on the article was to update the basic content and inspire someone to improve the article significantly. I am fairly gnomish in general and have quite a bit going on in the Wiki and real worlds. Best. - - MrBill3 (talk) 13:15, 18 July 2014 (UTC)
 * I did say updating refs was "great" above! Yes, there's an NHS link in the EL section, and the European guidelines are easy to find, both ESMO and the "official" ones. Sorry if I got the wrong end of the stick. There are just too few content-adders. Wiki CRUK John (talk) 13:59, 18 July 2014 (UTC)
 * Cervical and lung now done I think, with additions from the main articles, and pancreas section added. Breast o/s. Wiki CRUK John (talk) 21:20, 21 July 2014 (UTC)


 * Lancet ref undefined. I've a feeling this was added by me. To check later. Wiki CRUK John (talk) 13:44, 10 August 2014 (UTC)
 * Done. Wiki CRUK John (talk) 13:20, 19 August 2014 (UTC)

"Cancer screenings common among older, sick Americans"
Meaning too common - Reuters story on this JAMA paper. Wiki CRUK John (talk) 13:20, 19 August 2014 (UTC)

Independent Review
I updated the section about the risks and benefits of breast screening by discussing the results of a high-profile 2012 review. Siuhinglo (talk) 18:40, 26 November 2014 (UTC)

Cut forked information - moved to main article
I just cut the breast cancer screening information out. I wanted to emphasize that readers should go to the main article. This section was getting long and it had been marked as out of date since 2014. It is not practical to maintain it here, so I only provided enough information to introduce the topic and send readers to the article which is maintained. I copy/pasted this forked information to the talk page of Breast cancer screening.  Blue Rasberry  (talk)  15:49, 27 February 2017 (UTC)

Order of sections
The default choice for order is at Manual_of_Style/Medicine-related_articles. It recommends "types" as the first section. For a general article like this, I think that is not the best choice. I wanted to note that there is a standard and that I feel it does not fit this case.

I ordered the article in a way that I thought was appropriate.  Blue Rasberry  (talk)  19:16, 27 February 2017 (UTC)

Source on good tests
I cited my own organization's publication to fill out a "medical uses" or "indications" section.  Blue Rasberry  (talk)  21:46, 27 February 2017 (UTC)

Oral cancer
I have no idea how

"the screening of oral cancer as an individual subset of head and neck cancer is deemed beneficial."

is supported by this ref https://www.uspreventiveservicestaskforce.org/Page/Document/UpdateSummaryFinal/oral-cancer-screening1 which says

"The USPSTF concludes that the current evidence is insufficient to assess the balance of benefits and harms of screening for oral cancer in asymptomatic adults."

Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 19:01, 23 November 2017 (UTC)
 * That screening is recommended by one group of dental hygienists is of lower significance than the USPSTF statement. Therefore it should go after. Doc James  (talk · contribs · email) 23:35, 28 November 2017 (UTC)

DNA screening
DNA screening 208.68.24.41 (talk) 13:53, 7 December 2021 (UTC)

Please update appropriate article/s with info about studies/developments about new biomarkers-based cancer screening
I think it may be good to add info about these three and maybe similar developments to relevant articles (possibly the ones wikilinked):

Progress in cancer pre-screening, screening and early detection is reported: metabolomic biomarkers in blood (4 J.), circulating proteins biomarkers (7 J.),  and an optical biopsy system with a fine-needle probe (6 J.).

It's currently featured like above in 2022 in science (January).

I'm not sure if, where and how it would be most due.

This may also be relevant for a timeline, but as is it doesn't seem fit for Timeline of cancer treatment development, and Timeline of biomarkers (or something similar) doesn't (yet?) exist.

I think Wikipedia articles should be up-to-date with relevant adequately-integrated brief scientific information. Please comment if you have any feedback or idea about
 * if, where and how info about these three studies and their broader topics (these could then be examples) should get added, or
 * if, where and how info about such cancer research progress more generally should get added, or
 * the proposed Timeline of biomarkers or List article

This post is mostly copied from Talk:Cancer biomarker but modified.

Prototyperspective (talk) 18:25, 20 February 2022 (UTC)


 * => A timeline article for biomarkers may not be the best approach, but I think enabling such, including on Wikipedia (e.g. it could also be enabled via Scholia and/or a dedicated collaborative biomarkers/screening database website), could still be useful and appropriate – for example a table with a column for the date could also be sorted by the date to show progress chronologically (rows with nonviable biomarkers and/or cancer screening progress could get trimmed).
 * => A suitable place to start with this could be Biomarker (medicine) which could/should be expanded.
 * => It could also be added to a new article like Cancer screening research that is parallel and similar to Spinal cord injury research. Note that it should be maintained and use scientific reviews whenever possible. I won't create any such article and would at most add a few updates to it.


 * The February section of the 2022 in science article currently has this:
 * "Progress in cancer screening is reported: DNA methylation biomarkers for breast cancer (WID-BC-index; 1 Feb.) and ovarian cancer (WID-OC-index; 1 Feb.) as well as lipidomics biomarkers for lung cancer (MS-based rapid targeted assay for levels of nine lipids in blood; 2 Feb.)."
 * --Prototyperspective (talk) 10:02, 22 March 2022 (UTC)
 * The February section of the 2022 in science article currently has this:
 * "Progress in cancer screening is reported: DNA methylation biomarkers for breast cancer (WID-BC-index; 1 Feb.) and ovarian cancer (WID-OC-index; 1 Feb.) as well as lipidomics biomarkers for lung cancer (MS-based rapid targeted assay for levels of nine lipids in blood; 2 Feb.)."
 * --Prototyperspective (talk) 10:02, 22 March 2022 (UTC)


 * Update for March:


 * "Progress in biomarkers-based cancer screening is reported: researchers estimate risks for prostate cancer based on age, PSA and hK2 (7 Mar). Researchers achieve high prediction accuracy for pancreatic cancer using faecal microbiota biomarkers (8 Mar). A cancer test that checks for more mutations than ever before in one tissue sample is launched by a biotech-company (15 Mar). The first clinical test of a technology to detect early-stage cancer via novel biomarkers of extracellular vesicles concludes with promising results, possibly reaching screening-relevant sensitivities at high specificity at least for pancreatic cancer (17 Mar)."


 * --Prototyperspective (talk) 17:27, 24 April 2022 (UTC)


 * Update for April:
 * "Cancer research progress: The largest study of whole cancer genomes reports 58 new mutational signatures and shows that for each organ 'cancers have a limited number of common signatures and a long tail of rare signatures'. A study reports presence of certain bacteria in the prostate and urine for aggressive forms of prostate cancer, with biomarker- and therapeutic potentials being unclear (18 Apr)."
 * --Prototyperspective (talk) 13:32, 26 May 2022 (UTC)

Prototyperspective (talk) 17:39, 24 April 2022 (UTC)

School task
Hi! Me and my partner (heltho) are going to edit this article and try to improve it for a school task. Annabashiri (talk) 08:42, 24 January 2024 (UTC)

Wiki Education assignment: The Impact of Cancer
— Assignment last updated by MTFFTM (talk) 17:45, 4 April 2024 (UTC)