more people in Singapore to seek screening<\/a>, according to some hospitals.<\/p>\nOver the past year, Tan Tock Seng Hospital saw about 40 per cent more people going for cancer check-ups. These are largely for common cancers such as colorectal, breast and cervical cancer.<\/p>\n
Medical practitioners attribute the trend to national health initiatives like Healthier SG, as well as greater awareness on social media.<\/p>\n
But with more people seeking reassurance, doctors are warning against over-testing and the use of unproven methods.<\/p>\n
\u201cSometimes it leads to more unnecessary tests, but it can be a good thing if something serious or preventable or treatable is found early,\u201d said Dr Leow.<\/p>\n
\u201cHealthcare resources are finite. So we want to avoid over-diagnosis or over-treatment, but we also want to avoid missing early treatable conditions that can affect someone’s lifespan, such as cancer. So I think there’s an intricate balance.\u201d<\/p>\n
NCIS has seen roughly 20 per cent more people going for cancer screenings since the COVID-19 pandemic. It calls for more public education to prevent over-testing.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe more tests you do, the more you incur unnecessary healthcare costs,\u201d said Dr Tan.<\/p>\n
Excessive testing can lead to false positives, where scans detect abnormalities that are not cancer, he added.<\/p>\n
\u201cThese can actually be quite debilitating to patients because it causes them to be very anxious and they might not be able to lead their lives properly after that.\u201d<\/p>\n
Experts also caution against the growing availability of unproven cancer screening tests, some of which are marketed commercially.<\/p>\n
Prof Ravindran said: \u201cWithout the data to support the use of these tests, what’s going to happen is a lot of times, we will just end up with a very anxious population.\u201d<\/p>\n
For now, doctors recommend following evidence-backed methods such as the health ministry’s recommended cancer screening programmes for various age groups and genders.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"CONCERNS OVER UNPROVEN TESTING Heightened awareness around cancer has led more people in Singapore to seek screening, according…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":404362,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[34],"tags":[2534,134,186506,527,111,139,69],"class_list":["post-404361","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-healthcare","tag-cancer","tag-health","tag-health-screening","tag-healthcare","tag-new-zealand","tag-newzealand","tag-nz"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/404361","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=404361"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/404361\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/404362"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=404361"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=404361"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=404361"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}