March Leading US Researcher Delivered NUI Galway Seminar on Cancer Screening

Professor Mark Ebell, a leading general practitioner and researcher in the US, recently delivered a seminar on cancer screening, organised by the HRB Primary Care Clinical Trials Network Ireland, a collaboration between NUI Galway, RCSI and the Irish College of General Practitioners.

Entitled ‘The potential benefits and harms of cancer screening – perspectives from the US Preventive Services Task Force’, Professor Ebell spoke about the potential benefits and harms of screening, an overview of how the US decides what cancers should be screened for, compared the national cancer screening recommendations of Ireland and the US and finally reviewed in some detail the key issue of over diagnosis as a harm.

Professor Andrew W Murphy, Director of the HRB Primary Care Clinical Trials Network Ireland and Established Professor of General Practice at NUI Galway, said: “Professor Ebell’s seminar was a great introduction to leading edge research internationally into ensuring that our cancer screening programs cause more good than harm. He provided practical advice onto how to achieve this. He highlighted that Irish cancer screening recommendations are currently congruent with best international practice – but need to be constantly reviewed.”

During the seminar Professor Ebell noted that while there are many kinds of cancer, for only a few is there evidence that the potential benefits of screening outweigh the potential harms. While potential benefits are substantial for a small number of those screened (a death averted), all patients experience some degree of inconvenience, and many are subjected to the harms of biopsies and other follow-up tests. A new kind of harm, increasingly recognised and present with most kinds of cancer screening, is over diagnosis. As our technology has evolved, we are able to detect smaller and smaller lesions that may appear cancerous, actually do not behave like a cancer. About 1 in 5 persons who have a breast or lung cancer detected by screening would have lived a full life with the cancer never causing any symptoms (“overdiagnosis”).

Professor Mark Ebell is currently a Professor in the Department of Epidemiology and Biostatistics in the College of Public Health at the University of Georgia, and Editor-in-Chief of Essential Evidence and Deputy Editor of the journal American Family Physician. He is author of over 350 peer-reviewed articles and is author or editor of seven books, with a focus on evidence-based practice, systematic reviews, medical informatics, and clinical decision-making. Professor Ebell served on the US Preventive Services Task Force from 2012 to 2015, and in 2019 will be a Fulbright Scholar at RCSI in Dublin, Ireland.

The seminar can be viewed at https://primarycaretrials.ie/resources/prof-markebell/.