Tesco
The Do-Nothing Dilemma
Article

The Do-Nothing Dilemma

Charlotte Huff
Mosaic, 2016
Read the article

Read or listen offline

  • 0.5×
  • 0.75×
  • 1×
  • 1.25×
  • 1.5×
  • 1.75×
1×

Editorial Rating

8

Qualities

  • Innovative
  • Applicable

Recommendation

Journalist Charlotte Huff makes a good case for “watchful waiting” in low-risk cancers and precancerous conditions. Highly sensitive scans pick up on changes so early today that it can be unclear what they will become: There can be false positives, and some cancers are extremely slow-growing. Unexpectedly, Huff makes it equally clear why some patients’ medical decision-making process means they are better off having surgery and peace of mind than living with uncertainty. While never giving medical advice, getAbstract recommends these thoughtful insights to readers interested in the risks, benefits and emotional implications of watchful waiting.

Take-Aways

  • Improvements in scanning technology now allow doctors to detect cancerous changes so early that it can be hard to know whether they will become life threatening.
  • For some patients, early scans will yield false positives that require ongoing monitoring until the “suspicious” cells either fail to grow or fade away.
  • The least physically harmful course of action for some conditions is simply to watch and wait, but some people find that stressful.

About the Author

Charlotte Huff is a Texas-based journalist, political science major and Fulbright journalism scholar. Her features have appeared in American Way, Genome, Medical Economics, Slate and Women’s Health.

Comment on this summary or 开始讨论