Doctors Push “BANNED” Cancer Tests 13 Years Later

I don’t blame you for wanting to catch cancer as early as possible.

And when you schedule every available cancer screening, you probably think you’re doing something good for your health.

You might even be following doctor’s orders.

Unfortunately, many doctors aren’t following the current guidelines.

Some of these tests are simply unnecessary. Others are downright harmful.

Despite recommendations to limit them, people are getting them anyway.

It’s not unusual for new scientific findings to take years to become standard practice.

In the meantime, you may be missing out on some of the latest advances. However, you could also be exposed to potentially harmful procedures.

This is especially true with cancer screenings.

In a recent study, researchers found that some cancer screenings are still being performed at least 13 years after new guidelines recommended against their use.

You see, when it comes to any drug or medical procedure, you have to weigh the risk versus benefit. Those also can change based on various factors, including age and medical history.

What’s generally beneficial for me might not be for you.

The United States Preventive Services Task Force is an independent (non-government), volunteer, non-profit group of experts that makes evidence-based recommendations about preventive services, like cancer screening tests.

The tests they evaluate are given letter grades of A through D or I (for “insufficient evidence”) based on the data they collect.

If a screening gets a D grade, it means it should not be performed because it either provides little benefit or poses unnecessary risks.

To find out how often outdated screenings were being done, researchers focused on data on two common cancer tests: cervical and prostate.

The current guidelines recommend against screening for cervical cancer in women younger than 21 and older than 65.

One year after the recommendations went into place, screening for cervical cancer dropped by half in women under 21. So far, so good.

However, in women over 65, it took 13 years for the number of screenings to decline to the same level.

Prostate cancer screenings haven’t been recommended for men 70 and over since 2012. Yet in the 13 years since these recommendations went into place, they haven’t even dropped by 50 percent.

Over-testing can lead to overdiagnosis, overtreatment, pain, anxiety, and more—all while offering few benefits and costing a whole lot of money.

To find out which cancer screenings “make the grade”—and which don’t—visit the USPSTF’s website: www.uspreventiveservicestaskforce.org and click on “Recommendations.”

To see my take on five of the most common cancer screenings, newsletter subscribers can check out my October 2023 issue HERE.

P.S. Promising new non-invasive test for colon cancer.

View Sources

LeLaurin JH, Pluta K, Norton WE, et al., Time to de-implementation of low-value cancer screening practices: a narrative review, BMJ Quality & Safety Published Online First: 20 May 2025. doi:10.1136/bmjqs-2025-018558