Response to Brodersen et al’ s ‘Overdiagnosis: what it is and what it isn’t’

Brodersen et al ’s recent editorial1 presents two types of overdiagnosis, but fails to acknowledge prior scholarship on this topic. We independently described these two types at the 2014 Preventing Overdiagnosis conference, followed by joint publication in 2016.2 The first type of overdiagnosis relates to the detection of harmless instances of the disease, secondary to the uptake of new diagnostic technologies and disease-finding practices such...