3 ms·
You don't know if it's a false positive or not until you do further interventions. Realizing it's unnecessary is only evident in hindsight. E.g. CT scan shows
by tetramer 3y ago
You don't know if it's a false positive or not until you do further interventions. Realizing it's unnecessary is only evident in hindsight.
E.g. CT scan shows an incidental, tiny lung nodule. You do a biopsy. Unfortunately, during the process of getting a biopsy, you develop a pneumothorax (an uncommon but well-known complication of a lung biopsy) and need a chest tube, hospitalization, etc. You get discharged and you're fine, but man, that wasn't fun. Biopsy comes back negative for cancer. Nodule goes away on its own with time.
Edit: that being said, I'm excited about OTC CGMs! But the "data" we have in medicine is not as accurate as other fields and always subject to false positives/negatives.
- unlikelytomato 3y agothe gap between cgm and a biopsy from a CT scan is vast. CGM is not enough to trigger any such intervention. Unnecessary interventions are absolutely a concern. A CGM is about as controversial as someone taking their own heart rate to help them calm down from panic attacks. Minimally invasive and nobody would base a dramatic intervention on this data alone.
- tetramer 3y agoSure. As I stated in my original comment, I'm excited about CGMs being widely available. The example in my comment was very specifically answering "why do doctors perform unnecessary interventions?".
- gtirloni 3y agoAgreed. Thanks for the perspective. Never considered downsides of such interventions (as I have been mostly a lab rat for doctors but never experienced things like that, but it's understandable).