- cross-posted to:
- medicine
- cross-posted to:
- medicine
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Id love to know how many “at-home” tests we could perform fairly accurately. Reduce the need to go see doctors.
At home screening isn’t eliminating the Doctor. Rather it is a step to see if intervention is needed.
At home bowel cancer screening, is a method to reduce the amount of colonoscopies needed. As you only scope those that present with symptoms or the bowel screening comes back positive. Otherwise you would have to scope based on age.
The problem comes down to liability, I’m sure.
Even if a test was 99% accurate, you know damn well that some family would sue their doctor (or whoever they felt was responsible) if they missed a diagnosis due to a false negative.
Even worse, false positives would create chaos at home.
I’d still support the use of at-home tests, provided you understand the limitations!
This is the best summary I could come up with:
Self-swabs for HPV — similar to the at-home rapid tests for the virus that causes COVID-19 — could significantly boost early detection, says Dr. Aisha Lofters, a scientist and family physician at Women’s College Hospital in Toronto, and a co-author of a paper published in Monday’s issue of the Canadian Medical Association Journal.
At-home HPV testing would help overcome barriers such as being unable to take time off work for medical appointments, having a history of sexual trauma or a lack of awareness, Lofters said.
“The fact that we have a screening tool that is even better, that can allow us to identify precancerous lesions earlier, get folks in treatment and prevent these unnecessary deaths, I think is incredibly exciting and motivating.”
At the Society of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists of Canada (SOGC), Dr. Diane Francoeur called the move to HPV tests for cervical cancer screening one of the greatest revolutions for women after the introduction of the birth control pill in the 1960s.
Across Canada, the shortage of staff like specialists and lab technologists will get worse, meaning women who wait for a cervical cancer diagnosis will suffer, Francoeur said.
To that end, the new guideline’s 15 screening recommendations prioritize having people automatically enrol with a family doctor or nurse practitioner, just like parents register their child at the local school.
The original article contains 809 words, the summary contains 213 words. Saved 74%. I’m a bot and I’m open source!