14 Population Screening Flashcards
Who do we want to give screening tests to?
Those who are more likely to be helped than harmed on further treatments. Those that we might get early prevention or treatment for.
Those what are higher risk and so help the sensitivity and specificity of the test.
What are the benefits of screening?
Early diagnosis for more effective treatment.
Prevent disease in at risk individuals.
Inform family planning.
Raise awareness of health status so they can take charge of their own health.
Be a cost effective solution at controlling disease at a population level.
What are the harms of screening?
Not 100% accurate. False positive - treatment they don’t need. False negative - Won’t take treatment.
People that could always be asymptomatic get stress and treatment they don’t need.
Disclosure of information in terms of affected relatives.
Implications for health insurance, only HD in UK.
What criteria are there for new screening programmes?
Test should be ethically and socially acceptable.
Patient should be informed and give consent.
Test should have acceptable accuracy.
A positive result must lead to some benefit.
It must show reasonable cost benefit analysis.
What is the difference in role between screening tests and diagnostic tests?
Screening detects disease markers.
Diagnosis detects disease.
What’s the difference in test population between screening tests and diagnostic tests
Screening - large numbers of at risk individuals.
Diagnostic - Symptomatic individuals, or those with positive screen
What’s the difference in test method between screening tests and diagnostic tests
Screening - cheap, simple, non-invasive.
Diagnostic - More expensive, complex, invasive, but justified.
What’s the difference in accuracy between screening tests and diagnostic tests
Screening - High sensitivity to avoid missing affected individuals.
Diagnostic - High specificity.
What the impact of a positive result of a screening vs diagnostic test?
Screening - suggestive of disease.
Diagnostic - Definite diagnosis.
For genetic tests, why is the distinction between a screening and diagnostic test sometimes unclear?
Diagnostic tests can be fairly low invasiveness, and positive screening results can be a definitive result
Screening programmes can be systematic such as breast cancer screening. Explain this.
Breast cancer screening is offered to all women 50-64 every 3 years. It’s to everyone as an offer, often a letter. This is common when stigma is low and the disease prevalence is high.
Screening programmes can be opportunistic like HIV in pregnant women. Explain this.
There is a stigma around it, so it is offered when individuals are present at clinical services for other reasons. Included in a series of tests
When are these screening tests?
Down’s syndrome, neural tube defects
Prenatally
What are some neonatal screening tests?
PKU, hypothyroidism, CF
When is preconception screening done?
For potential carriers that want to be parents. Such as Tay Sach’s disease
What are some presymptomatic/adult-onset screens?
Bowl/breast cancer, haemochromatosis
What will prenatal screens lead to?
People killing their babies
All pregnant women can have screens for downs syndrome but….
They need to opt in
Risk of trisomies increased with age, how much?
> 37 years old has a 1 in 200 risk.
Why is the age of 37 used as a screening age for downs syndrome specifically?
Because then the risk of downs syndrome = the risk of amniocenetsis inducing miscarriage
How is down syndrome prenatal testing done?
Aminocentesis and then chromosome analysis
Prenatal downs screening detects _____
35% of all downs syndrome cases (because many women are having children younger)
There’s a quadruple test that looks for increased HCG or inhibin A, or decreased alpha-fetoprotein or unconjugated oesteriols. What does this test do to help screening?
Those positive on a quadruple test AND >37 combined are only 5% of pregnancies, but it’s able to increase the number of detections of downs syndrome. It decreases the number of invasive tests, and the test is more cost effective.
What screening tests do use neonate blood spot cards for?
PKU, hypothyroidism, sickle cell anaemia, thalassaemia, CF, MCADD, and inherited metabolic diseases
How many are affected by PKU?
1 in 10,000 births. 250 cases/year