Global Media Coverage of the Benefits and Harms of Early Detection Tests
Mary O’Keeffe, PhD1; Alexandra Barratt, MD2; Alice Fabbri, MD3,4; Joshua R. Zadro, PhD1; Giovanni E. Ferreira, PhD1; Sweekriti Sharma, MPH1; Ray N. Moynihan, PhD5
https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamainternalmedicine/article-abstract/2778372
Synthesis by Cécile Bour, MD, April 22, 2021
This "researchers' letter" is from Australian scientists including Prof. A. Barratt, Professor of Public Health at the University of Sydney and Dr. Ray Moynihan, Australian researcher at Bond University and health journalist, focuses on the media coverage of screening tests. It was published in JAMA on April 5, 2021. The authors of the publication study the way in which the balance of benefits and harms of 5 tests are treated in the media.
Media is key to promoting testing of asymptomatic individuals in the population, and might play an important role in encouraging realistic reporting of the benefits and harms of screening, including unnecessary diagnoses.
But data suggest that medical media coverage tends to exaggerate benefits, minimize harms, and ignore conflicts of interest.
Methods
The authors studied all English-language narratives from 2016 to 2019 in LexisNexis (a publishing and professional information company), ProQuest (a global company providing tools for content search and management from dissertations, theses, books, newspapers, periodicals, etc.) and Google News.
All types of non-fiction articles from newspapers, blogs, magazines, and broadcast transcripts were included as long as they mentioned or implied benefit or harm from medical testing, with or without disclosure of conflicts of interest of the narrators involved.
The stories were reviewed for health benefits (early treatment, saving lives) and harms (false positives, overdiagnosis), and reflected views expressed by the commentators according to their agreement or disagreement.
Five early detection tests were targeted by this review: liquid biopsies, tomosynthesis also known as three-dimensional mammography (discussed on this site [1] [2]), electrocardiogram recording using the Apple Watch Series4 app, blood biomarkers for dementia, and artificial intelligence technology in dementia.
Results
Overall, media coverage focuses much more on the benefits of early detection testing than on the harms, and the risk of overdiagnosis was poorly covered.
Overall, 97% of the narratives reported benefits, 37% reported harms, and only 34% reported both benefits and harms.
63% of stories reported only benefits, while only 3% reported only harms.
Overdiagnosis was mentioned in only 57 of the 432 stories, making only 13% of all content that mentioned harms, or 5% of stories in the entire set.
In total
This study confirms the results of other similar studies on the subject of health media coverage[3] [4] [5].
The authors suggest that improved media communication would encourage a healthier skepticism about the health options available to populations, and reduce the problem of overdiagnosis (or overdetection).
They argue that strategies are urgently needed to improve media coverage so that professionals, patients and the public receive more balanced information about early detection tests.
Comments
In the past, we have repeatedly expressed our alarm at the biased reporting of scientific facts in the media.
In the case of screening mammography, easy slogans are used, facilitated by the impossibility for women to make an informed decision since they are fallaciously informed, as shown in a previous study[6].
A commentary published following the Australian study in JAMA was of particular interest to us[7].
It is that of Dr. Diamandis[8], head biochemist of the University Health Network and 'Toronto Medical Laboratories' and also division head of clinical biochemistry in the department of pathobiology at the University of Toronto in Ontario, Canada.
Indeed, we can remember the unbridled media hype and enthusiasm, as early as 2015, about "liquid biopsies"[9]. The "woman who would beat cancer", "the heroine of modern times" was presented on many television platforms and several more or less glamorous media. She was Mrs. Patrizia Paterlini-Bréchot, a scientist who worked on the development of liquid biopsies. [10][11] [12] [13] [14] [15] [16] [17]
But studies and publications that are less media-friendly[18] [19] dampen this enthusiasm about the possibility of using liquid biopsies more widely as routine population-based screening.
Indeed, in addition to its high cost and complexity, these tests on circulating tumor DNA seem to suffer from the same problems of low sensitivity and specificity as traditional biomarkers if we try to use them for screening in an asymptomatic and a priori healthy population. This means that we are heading for over-diagnosis, large numbers of false positives, with panic in the population and cascades of additional examinations for those who test positive (for a better understanding of these notions, see here: https://cancer-rose.fr/2016/11/13/cancer-du-sein-un-peu-de-technique/).
In his commentary to the Australian team's study, Dr. Diamandis writes:
"More recently, as the authors pointed out, we have seen a strong push by academic researchers and companies for DNA tests of circulating tumors for early cancer detection. However, our calculations showed that this test will only be able to detect large symptomatic tumors. We further stressed the need for newspapers to provide a space for healthy debate on such controversial issues. Since: biased reporting favoring the good news, but not the bad news..."
References
[1] https://cancer-rose.fr/2019/11/28/avis-de-la-haute-autorite-de-sante-sur-la-performance-de-la-mammographie-par-tomosynthese-dans-le-depistage-organise/
[2] https://cancer-rose.fr/2019/03/09/association-de-la-tomosynthese-versus-mammographie-numerique-dans-la-detection-des-cancers/
[3] MoynihanR,BeroL,Ross-DegnanD,etal.Coveragebythenewsmediaof the benefits and risks of medications. N Engl J Med. 2000;342(22):1645-1650.
[4] MoynihanRN,ClarkJ,AlbarqouniL.Mediacoverageofthebenefitsand harms of the 2017 expanded definition of high blood pressure. JAMA Intern Med. 2019;179(2):272-273.
[5] Walsh-ChildersK,BraddockJ,RabazaC,SchwitzerG.Onestepforward,one step back: changes in news coverage of medical interventions. Health Commun. 2018;33(2):174-187.
[6] https://cancer-rose.fr/en/2020/12/18/perception-and-reality-2/
[7] https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamainternalmedicine/article-abstract/2778372
[8] https://www.aacc.org/community/merit-awards/hall-of-fame/bios/a-to-k/eleftherios-diamandis
[9]Liquid biopsy consists, schematically, in taking a blood sample to detect as early as possible material released into the blood by cancerous tumors. Three tools can be used: detection of circulating tumor DNA, circulating tumor RNA, circulating tumor cells.
For the moment, this is considered to be an interesting avenue for research. But a person who does not have cancer and is simply concerned about his or her health cannot, today, benefit from this type of blood test.
[10] https://www.letemps.ch/sciences/biopsie-liquide-parade-inedite-contre-cancer
[11] https://www.marieclaire.fr/,focus-sur-patrizia-paterlini-brechot-la-femme-qui-va-nous-sauver-du-cancer,819617.asp
[12] https://www.notretemps.com/sante/actualites-sante/patrizia-paterlini-brechot-oncologue-court-cancer,i119711
[13] https://www.hachette.fr/interview/patrizia-paterlini-brechot-combattu-avec-la-tete-et-avec-le-coeur-pour-y-arriver
[14] https://www.elle.fr/Societe/News/Patrizia-Paterlini-Brechot-la-femme-qui-fait-reculer-le-cancer-2859710
[15] https://www.dailymotion.com/video/x43u007
[16] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5AwzQ77r258
[17] https://da-dk.facebook.com/franceinter/videos/patrizia-paterlini-br%C3%A9chot-est-linvit%C3%A9-de-patrick-cohen-du-19/1230781260290325/
[18] Fiala C, Diamandis EP. Utility of circulating tumor DNA in cancer diagnostics with emphasis on early detection. BMC Med. 2018 Oct 2;16(1):166. doi: 10.1186/s12916-018-1157-9. PMID: 30285732; PMCID: PMC6167864.
[19] https://www.edimark.fr/lettre-cancerologue/biopsie-liquide-avantages-limites
"The use of CTCs or tcDNA as tools for early detection of primary tumor or recurrence remains a very active area of clinical research, but is not, in the absence of clinical evidence, routinely applicable."