What is the difference between a general health screening and a diagnostic study?
The objective of a preventative health screening is to separate the normal from the abnormal or questionable findings and send the person with the abnormal finding on for further follow-up studies to quantify the extent of the disease. The idea of a screening study is it should be inexpensive, readily available and very reliable with few false negatives. No study is 100% accurate. We should be willing to accept a false positive once in a while as a minor downside to not missing anything. That is the nature of any health screening study, whether it is a nuclear bone scan, PAP smear, or mammogram. It is better to check out an abnormal appearing or questionable finding and be safe rather than sorry.
A. The objective of a preventative health screening is to separate the normal from the abnormal or questionable findings and send the person with the abnormal finding on for further follow-up studies to quantify the extent of the disease. The idea of a screening study is it should be inexpensive, readily available and very reliable with few false negatives. No study is 100% accurate. We should be willing to accept a false positive once in a while as a minor downside to not missing anything. That is the nature of any health screening study, whether it is a nuclear bone scan, PAP smear, or mammogram. It is better to check out an abnormal appearing or questionable finding and be safe rather than sorry.
A. The objective of a preventive health screening is to separate the normal from the abnormal or questionable findings and send the person with the abnormal finding on for further follow-up studies to quantify the extent of the disease. The idea of a screening study is it should be inexpensive, readily available and very reliable with few false negatives. No study is 100% accurate. We should be willing to accept a false positive once in a while as a minor downside to not missing anything. That is the nature of any health screening study, whether it is a nuclear bone scan, PAP smear, or mammogram.
