When I use a word . . . . Too much healthcare—overdiagnosis

OverdiagnosisRecognition of the phenomenon of overdiagnosis is older than you might think, although the meaning of the word has changed over the years.Trying to trace the concept back, and to determine what it means, I start with the Merriam-Webster online dictionary (at https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary). It defines “overdiagnosis” as “the diagnosis of a condition or disease more often than it is actually present” and gives “diagnose” as a secondary entry, implying that it’s a back-formation. It also states that the first known use of overdiagnosis was in 1971, in the meaning defined. It doesn’t give the 1971 quote, but it might be in the title of a paper in the Journal of the Canadian Association of Radiologists: “Potential over-diagnosis of pancreatic islet cell adenoma.”1Perhaps the Oxford English Dictionary (OED) can do better. And it does—to an extent. It defines “overdiagnosis” as “Excessively frequent (and hence occasionally incorrect) diagnosis of a particular disease,…
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