"In 2011, the rate of thyroid-cancer diagnoses in the Republic of Korea was 15 times that observed in 1993..."

N Engl J Med. 2014 Nov 6;371(19):1765-1767.

Korea's Thyroid-Cancer "Epidemic" - Screening and Overdiagnosis.

Ahn HS1, Kim HJ, Welch HG.

Author information

• 1From the Department of Preventive Medicine, College of Medicine, Korea University, Seoul, South Korea (H.S.A., H.J.K.); and the Dartmouth Institute for Health Policy and Clinical Practice, Hanover, NH (H.G.W.).

Abstract

In 2011, the rate of thyroid-cancer diagnoses in the Republic of Korea was 15 times that observed in 1993, yet thyroid-cancer mortality remains stable - a combination that suggests that the problem is overdiagnosis attributable to widespread thyroid-cancer screening.