What do the USPSTF letter grades mean?
The USPSTF’s recommendations are based on its assessment of net benefit—identified benefits minus identified harms. The USPSTF will only make a recommendation if it judges the available evidence to be of high enough quality that it can have high or moderate certainty as to the magnitude of the net benefit. Interventions that are deemed to have substantial net benefit receive an A grade; interventions with moderate to substantial net benefit receive a B grade; interventions with small net benefit receive a C grade; interventions that have no net benefit (have harms that exceed the benefits) receive a D grade. If the evidence does not meet USPSTF standards, an “I statement” is issued. Each letter grade is accompanied by a suggestion for practice. For A and B recommendations, the suggestion is to “offer/provide this service.” For C recommendations, the suggestion is to “offer/provide this service only if other considerations support offering or providing the service in an individual patie
