15 times the incidence rate!

"Early detection, early diagnosis, early treatment", cancer screening is an important part of cancer prevention and treatment

Screening and overdiagnosis [1]

South Korea has provided health insurance to 50 million citizens since the 1980s, and has a well-developed vital statistics and cancer incidence data infrastructure

Some doctors took a different view, expressing concern about overdiagnosis of thyroid cancer

Epidemiological data show that the incidence of thyroid cancer in South Korea increased slowly from the 1990s and rose rapidly after the turn of the century

Thyroid cancer incidence and mortality in Korea (1993~2011).

In 2010, the results of the Korea Community Health Survey showed that there was a strong correlation between the proportion of people screened for cancer in a region in 2008 and 2009 and the incidence of thyroid cancer in the region in 2009

In 2011, more than 40,000 people in South Korea were diagnosed with the disease — a figure more than 100 times the number of deaths from thyroid cancer

Thyroid cancer surgery has important implications for patients

Pathologists have long recognized the possibility of substantial subclinical thyroid cancer

Reversing the trend[2]

In 2015, the New England Journal of Medicine published a review article

Image from: N Engl J Med.

Of course, some people will suggest that fewer diagnoses and fewer surgeries may increase thyroid cancer mortality

Thyroid cancer screening and treatment has become "big business" in South Korea

A small group of medical workers can change the direction of health care through public discourse, but there are also significant challenges

Written at the end: The Korean thyroid cancer screening event should be an important reference for the rest of the world

references

1.

2.
N Engl J Med.
2015; 373(24): 2389-90.