[The role of screening studies in epidemiology and occupational medicine]

Discussed in the paper are the conditions underlying the planning of screening tests for early diagnosis of diseases--at the asymptomatic stage--and the detection of higher risk groups. The so called "early diagnosis" can be established with various strategies: specific examinations for all those spontaneously coming to physicians, periodic examinations for industrial workers, genetic screening ensuring the protection against exposures to work environment hazards for those exhibiting genetically conditioned biochemical abnormalities. Screening tests in a specific population should be preceded by extensive epidemiological studies aimed at the determination of such basic parameters as: the rate of feature marker in a population, incidence of the disease resulting from the marker's presence, determination of the relative risk coefficient.