Doctors have rejected calls to drop the "cancer" label from low-risk diagnoses after Australian researchers called for a radical rethink of how patients are told about their disease...
It's the dreaded 'C' word which medical experts say can lead to unnecessary anxiety and unnecessary treatment. They're pushing for the label "cancer" to no longer be used when describing low-risk conditions.
The word “cancer” should be dropped from some medical diagnoses because the term can scare people into invasive treatments they do not need, Australian and US researchers say...
Australian researchers are calling for a radical overhaul of cancer diagnoses to reduce harmful overtreatment. Dropping the "cancer" label from low-risk conditions including localised prostate and "stage 0" breast cancers could protect many patients from unnecessary aggressive treatment and distress, researchers at the University of [...]
High breast tissue density increases the risk of breast cancer and the risk that it may be missed on mammography; laws mandating communicating density-related risk to women have been introduced in many states in the USA. In this scoping review, the authors identify and [...]
This study assessed which factors, including cancer and non-cancer terminology, influence preferences and trade-offs for treatment for papillary thyroid cancer. It found that individuals are willing to tolerate more sever adverse effects from treatment if the term ‘cancer’ is used to describe the condition. [...]
This study assessed whether preferences for treatment and anxiety levels differ when a diagnosis of papillary thyroid cancer is described with and without the term ‘cancer’. The study found that calling a diagnosis cancer does matter. Participants in the study had a higher preference for surgery, [...]
There is a growing body of research showing that disease labels can impact people’s psychological responses and their decisions about management options. The use of more medicalised labels can increase both concern about illness and desire for more invasive treatment. For low risk cancers [...]