BENEFITS

Several screening tests have been shown to detect cancer early and to reduce the chance of dying from that cancer. These tests are very important and repeated regularly in patients with confirmed cancer with or without treatment. They are performed to monitor responses to cancer treatment (during the treatment process) or to detect the recurrence of cancer (after treatment completion) in these patients. In medicine, this is called tertiary prevention. has more potential benefits than harms (possible harms of screening tests include bleeding or other physical damage, false-positive or false-negative test results, and overdiagnosis—the diagnosis of cancers that would not have caused problems and did not need treatment)