Figure 3 from Late-Stage Outcomes as Surrogates for Mortality in Cancer Screening Trials: A Systematic Review and Meta-analysis

Bubble plots to evaluate the strength of association between the trial-level effect of screening on cancer mortality and the effect on either incidence of late-stage cancer or the proportion of cancers that are late stage, separately for bowel, breast, and lung cancer screening trials. The figure provides more details on the associations between the screening effect on mortality and the screening effect on the late-stage incidence for cancers with the largest numbers of trials and additionally stratifies by the type of the screening test within each cancer type. Plots A–C are for incidence of late-stage cancer and D–F for proportion of cancers that are late stage. a, the intercept from the regression analysis; b, the regression coefficient from the regression analysis; ρ, the estimated correlation coefficients. FOBT, fecal occult blood test; LDCT, low-dose CT.