[Pros and cons of cancer screenings]

Cancer screenings aim to detect latent or oligosymptomatic cancers in the early stage when treatment of the disease can be curative and cancer death may in many cases be prevented. Improved quality of life is a characteristic feature of good screening. Screenings may also lessen human suffering, for instance. For the society, early-stage cancer treatment saves money. Drawbacks of screenings are both false positive and false negative screening results leading to unnecessary further investigations. A latent cancer may also remain undetected due to a false test result.