Overtreatment: Is a solution possible?

Abstract

Screening is a useful tool for identifying potential health issues; however, it can also lead to overtreatment. Consequently, patients are sometimes harmed by unnecessary treatments and there are cost implications. Overtreatment can also occur in other areas of medicine besides screening and sometimes medical interventions are used to improve performance rather than to treat disease. In this paper, a distinction is made between the perspectives of the patient and the government. For patients, autonomy is important, and they can refuse life-saving treatments, assuming they have decision-making capacity. They can also choose to be treated to avoid a very small risk or to improve their performance. For a government with limited funds, it is important to focus on outcomes and fund those screening programmes and other medical interventions that can potentially save the most lives or prevent severe disability. Governments also have the power to legislate to enable a level playing field by prohibiting medications that improve performance, but there is no general consensus about this, and regulations can only be applied to specific, well-defined activities. The problem with overtreatment results from the different interests involved: autonomy is the guiding idea for patients and outcome is the guiding measure for societies. A general solution will not be possible because of these inherent conflicting interests. However, medical research may improve the identification and predictions surrounding any anomalies detected during scans and reduce the problem in practice for specific conditions.