Overdiagnosis and Overtreatment: Boon or Bane?

Key Points

• Overdiagnosis often leads to many individuals receiving unnecessary treatment, increasing the risk of adverse effects.
• Many diagnosed lesions, both neoplastic and nonneoplastic, may remain harmless throughout one's life.
• Lowering the threshold for disease identification often results in the reclassification of at-risk individuals as patients.
• The management of these subclinical cases can result in more harm than benefit, necessitating reevaluation strategies.