The Importance and Complexity of Addressing Thyroid Cancer Overdiagnosis
Menée à l'aide d'un modèle de microsimulation, cette étude estime le taux de surdiagnostic du cancer papillaire de la thyroïde au niveau de la population américaine puis examine l'effet de la réduction du recours à l'échographie thyroïdienne sur l'incidence du cancer de la thyroïde et la mortalité globale
Papillary thyroid carcinoma (PTC) is a complex disease. Most certainly overdiagnosed, PTC is typically indolent, slowly growing, and for most patients, more likely to be detected on postmortem examination than anytime during their natural lives. Yet, for an illness that is notoriously asymptomatic on presentation, a small minority of patients develop advanced disease whereby earlier detection is beneficial. At the same time, clinical benefit is an equally complex term to define, especially as long-term watchful observation of untreated PTC appears increasingly safe, although most often studied in small micro-PTCs (<1 cm), for which medical experts have nonetheless long agreed that intervention is unnecessary. It is against this backdrop that the important modeling data by Francis and colleagues enhances our knowledge and should be interpreted.
JAMA Network Open , éditorial en libre accès, 2026