Screening in Chronic Disease

Book excerpt: Early detection, or screening, is vital in controlling chronic diseases, but too little information has been available to help practitioners determine which screening procedures are worthwhile, and how often and to whom they should be applied. This timely new book presents the epidemiologic methods that can be used to answer such questions, focusing on how to describe and measure changes in the natural history of disease brought on by early treamtent, lead time, and prognostic selection. The author explains how to assess the usefulness of screening in reducing morbidity and mortality, and provides thorough descriptions of the experimental and case-control approaches. This is a valuable reference for students of epidemiology and biostatistics and for all who are concerned about the design, analysis and interpretation of studies to evaluate screening.