Which of the following characteristics of a disease make it potentially suitable as the target of a screening programme? (Select all that apply)
A)It is rare in the population
B)People are very afraid of getting this disease
C)Outcomes are better if the disease is treated early in its natural history
D)Patients do very well on standard treatment whenever they are diagnosed
E)There is a very good but expensive test available to diagnose it

Question

Quizplus · Accepted Answer

Option E may also apply if the benefits of screening outweigh the costs
of the test.People won't be interested in being screened for a disease they're not
worried about (B), and early detection through screening permits the more effective
early treatment (C).Ideally tests used in screening programmes will be cheap, but you
have seen examples in the chapter where quite expensive tests such as mammography
are used in population‐wide programmes, reflecting the community's judgement of the
need to minimise harms from breast cancer.The rarer a disease is (A), the lower the
prevalence and therefore the less effective the test is; and if treatment works well
whenever someone is diagnosed (D) in the course of their disease there is no benefit in
early detection‐ indeed the later a diagnosis is made the better.

Which of the Following Characteristics of a Disease Make It