Most US cancer prevention guidelines don't provide information needed for decision-making

Medical News Today

 The majority of cancer prevention and screening recommendations in the United States did not quantify benefits and harms or were unable to be presented in an even matter. These prevention and screening recommendations should be improved so that both clinicians and patients have better access to information so that they can make a more educated decision, according to a study published February 23 in the JNCI: Journal of the National Cancer Institute....

 The researchers found 55 recommendations for using interventions to prevent or detect breast, prostate, colon, cervical, and lung cancer in 32 guidelines and that of those 55 recommendations, 39% received a comparable rating, while 14.5% received an incomplete rating. 54.5% received an asymmetric rating.

In an accompanying editorial, Michael Pignone, M.D., M.P.H., Professor of Medicine and Chief, UNC Division of General Internal Medicine, writes that the findings presented by Caverly and colleagues, "could be an important root cause of inadequate patient-provider communication and low patient knowledge about cancer screening services." "If we assume that guidelines are important sources of information for communication about cancer screening, we must then ask why the presentation of information about benefits and downsides in guidelines seems to be suboptimal." 

 Reference:
Cancer Prevention: Obstacles, Challenges, and the Road Ahead. Frank L. Meyskens Jr, Hasan Mukhtar, Cheryl L. Rock, Jack Cuzick, Thomas W. Kensler, Chung S. Yang, Scott D. Ramsey, Scott M. Lippman and David S. Alberts. Journal of the National Cancer Institute. DOI. 10.1093/jnci/djv309. Published February 23, 2016.
Source: Oxford University Press USA