Screening for the early detection of cancer- II. The impact of screening on the natural history of the disease

Arthur Albert, Paul M. Gertman, Thomas A. Louis, Shu ing Liu

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

37 Scopus citations

Abstract

In this report we develop a model which describes the temporal evolution of the natural history of a chronic progressive disease such as cancer, in a population which is subjected to screening and "natural" demographic forces. Several new measures of merit are defined, in terms of which the salutory effects of screening can be ascertained quantitatively. A computer program has been written which permits exploitation of the model over a wide range of assumptions concerning the characteristics of the disease in question. We present results based upon a set of assumptions chosen to mimic the known epidemiologic characteristics of cervical cancer. We show that an intelligently designed screening program, which preferentially selects high-risk age strata for screening, convincingly outperforms a program which screens all ages over 30 annually.

Original languageEnglish (US)
Pages (from-to)61-109
Number of pages49
JournalMathematical Biosciences
Volume40
Issue number1-2
DOIs
StatePublished - Jul 1978
Externally publishedYes

ASJC Scopus subject areas

  • Statistics and Probability
  • Modeling and Simulation
  • General Biochemistry, Genetics and Molecular Biology
  • General Immunology and Microbiology
  • General Agricultural and Biological Sciences
  • Applied Mathematics

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