‘Overdiagnosis’: some breast cancer treatments may have been unnecessary, study suggests

Cancer organisations acknowledge the risks of overdiagnosis and say patients should be given more information about the downsides of screening and treatment for some cancers. Photograph: Burger/Phanie/Rex Features

When Jenny* had a mastectomy after being diagnosed with breast cancer, she believed the major surgery to remove her breast, although traumatic, had saved her life.

She described feeling “rage” when at a follow-up appointment three years later, she said to her surgeon, “I would probably be dead by now” if she had not received the surgery, to which he replied: “Probably not.”