RESEARCH NEWS
When science meets philosophy: understanding the ethical implications of overdiagnosis
Macquarie University’s Professor Wendy Rogers is taking a philosophical approach to the issue of overdiagnosis in the healthcare sector.
Overdiagnosis refers to a range of healthcare activities or interventions that end up harming rather than helping patients. It can occur when the definitions of disease are widened, when harmless or clinically insignificant lesions are diagnosed or treated, or when screening identifies harmless as well as progressive cancers.
“Apart from causing harm to patients who are diagnosed with conditions that, if left undiagnosed, would cause them no harm, overdiagnosis increases health care costs and diverts healthcare resources away from the treatment of diseases with significant morbidity and mortality,” explains Professor Rogers.
“Thus overdiagnosis is a problem, not only for individual patients who may be harmed, but also for healthcare providers and policy makers.”
Professor Rogers’ research project will develop an account of disease that can help to distinguish risk factors from disease, provide ethical reasons for screening or not screening, and be useful in addressing the problems of overdiagnosis.
“One of the drivers for overdiagnosis is the lack of an account of disease that will ground distinctions between normal or healthy, abnormal or increased risk, and presence of disease. Philosophy can help with this kind of definitional work,” she adds.
Professor Rogers has already presented the work at the University of Sydney, the Australian Catholic University, and Medical Grand Rounds at St Vincent’s hospital, and at a booked out workshop at the international Preventing Overdiagnosis conference at Oxford University in September.
Learn more about Professor Wendy Rogers and her research project