“Cancer” may be one of the most frightening and stigmatic words in the western world. Over the past several decades cancer treatments, therapies, and screenings have been a billions of dollars industry, as people search for ways to prevent, treat, and cure themselves or loved ones of this frightening disease. In particular, cancer screenings have had a pivotal role in the way that the public feels and thinks about cancer, with many believing it to be their best or only protection. However, a shift in the medical world is starting to move away from the necessity of screenings as new and very large clinical trials are coming to an end.

As reported in The New York Times, the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force has already come out in the last several years critical of the value of cancer screenings. Several years ago they found that early mammogram screenings were probably not necessary in women under 50 and that women over 50 should consider having them less often. Just this year the USPSTF has published an opinion on the PSA form of prostate cancer screening in men, saying that the harms of such screens may actually outweigh the benefits.

One of the greatest misunderstandings that has been highlighted by the release of these new clinical trials, the evidence of which has been in progress for a decade or more, is that cancer as a disease is often not lethal. Many cancers, when they are present, grow so slowly or are stable enough that it may never be necessary to treat it. Particularly in senior citizens, where screenings often catch small cancers, the treatments resulting from a positive diagnosis may actually be more harmful than the cancer itself. Although cancer is still a highly unknowable disease, even many cancer treatments are focused on being less invasive and more stabilizing; rather than removing the cancer or killing it, the focus is on stopping its growth or shrinking it.

In a practical sense, some of this emerging opinion is purely cost analysis. As healthcare costs continue to skyrocket, expensive cancer screens and treatments are contributing to the ballooning prices. Finding cancer and looking at its effect on mortality rate doesn’t seem to show any correlation, while it does significantly contribute to overall healthcare cost.

Of course many doctors and patients still demand preventive screening, which may just be a manifestation of the “cancer” culture. People are used to seeing cancer in a certain way, are used to the fear and emphasis on prevention and treatment, and so still want the screens. Still, the evidence is there and a shift within the medical world, at least the academic part of it, is underway.