Balancing checks

Press, 10 May 1980, Page 14

Balancing checks

From the “Economist,” London

The medical profession has for years exhorted healthy Americans to have an annual medical check-up, even when they had nothing obviously wrong. The barrage of ever more searching

tests helped to send medical costs soaring, besides exposing people, - many thought, to too many X-rays. One medical group after another is now recommending that medical exam-

inations be kept farther apart., • People should be screened, doctors now think* only at the age when the ill* nesses are likeliest to occur, The American Cancer. Society has announced that, according to its research, early detection of lung cancer has made no significant dent in the frequency of illness or death. This is a change. The yearly tests, the society has concluded, are worth neither the risks nor the expense. The society is also recommending lengthening the interval between tests for cervical cancer from one to three years. It influences cancer research and medical policy in many countries throughout the world. Together with other groups such as the Institute of Medicine at the National Academy' of Sciences, the society holds that the advice not to check everything every year has come with better means of detection and a clearer understanding of disease. Critics of the new trend, such as the' American College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists, suspect, however, that the new guidelines are based less on sound medical judgment than on the fears of the medical profession that unless it cuts medical costs, the Government will do it instead.- • ' -