The growing epidemic of overdiagnosis.

As more people seek out medical care, how many of the diagnoses and treatments being provided are actually necessary?

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Many years ago I came across a story of a family in which many members of said family decided to make a radical decision- they would get their stomachs removed.

The reason seemed to be due to the family’s history of stomach cancer, in which many family members had succumbed to this specific cancer by way of carrying a mutation in their CDH1 gene. This mutation appears to be related to hereditary diffuse gastric cancer (HDGC), a heavily aggressive form of cancer with generally poor prognosis.

Therefore, as carriers of this gene many family members decided to get their stomach removed. In this report from NPR up to 11 family members, comprised of cousins, siblings, and nieces/nephews decided to forego with their stomachs at the time of the report.

Even at a young age hearing this story raised a few questions. Although a rather aggressive cancer, it doesn’t appear that the family members who elected to have their stomachs removed had any indication of stomach cancer aside from the risk through carrying the CDH1 mutation. Because of this fact, it seemed radical to jump to removing a rather vital organ under suspicion alone.

This family case is likely to be a rare instance of taking an otherwise proper proactive stance given the fact that many family members seemed to have succumbed to stomach cancer, and so the risk to not have a stomach removed may be worse than living without a stomach as Diane Sindt notes in her interview. Nonetheless, it does raise a question of surgical procedures done with the intent of prevention rather than treatment. It’s a rather pertinent question given everything going on in our modern times.

What if some cancers are actually benign, and may not lead to aggressive cancers? What if advancements in diagnostic tools may actually be leading people to seek out medical procedures that would otherwise not be needed, especially if the procedure is debilitating or costly?