Re:Loss of myelin is one of the major factors of age-related...
by AnIdiotOnTheNet on Tuesday March 16, 2021 @11:41AM
(#26478293)
> Many tests are simply not that good. It's not that simple, like pay $1 for a test that with absolute certainty tells you if you have disease X or not.
I will note that in my case the test is routine and reliable and has been since before I was born.
Re:Loss of myelin is one of the major factors of age-related...
by goda90 on Tuesday March 16, 2021 @02:16PM
(#26480696)
Sure you can't take every test at face value. How you approach the results of something that isn't 100% accurate is important. A potential false positive should mean a follow-up test, not a full diagnosis. Or even just holding onto the information until it can be part of a bigger picture with presenting symptoms. You don't even need to tell the patient what the results MIGHT point to, so you don't encourage hypochondria.
But if you have a test that is wrong 20% of the time, and you take this on all your patients every year, you will end up with a huge amount of mental suffering or possibly physical side-effects (unnecessary biopsies, or even surgery). You might end up giving people long runs of unnecessary meds. OTOH, you might end up missing some diagnoses if you don't do some tests. Balancing all of this is difficult.
Of course this is not news to the medical profession, this is a big input to the standard flowcharts. And you can always find anecdotal edge-cases that think their particular case was crystal clear and should have immediately been diagnosed. But don't assume that medical diagnosis and treatment is as trivial as doing a blood test and some googling.