PodMed TT – MRIs and the Overdiagnosis of Breast Cancer, Clinical Prediction Rules to Rule Out Pulmonary Embolism, and More

If you’re a woman who chooses to have mammography screening, what are the chances that you end up with a biopsy if routine mammography is used versus magnetic resonance imaging (MRI)? That’s the focus of a study Rick and I discuss on PodMedTT this week, showing that women who had MRI were more likely than those who had routine imaging of their breasts to have a subsequent biopsy, but no more likely to have cancer detected. Yikes. Sounds like MRI may be part of the overdiagnosis/overtreatment problem in breast cancer. The study can be found in JAMA Internal Medicine.

MRIs and the overdiagnosis of breast cancer was one of the topics of this week’s PodMed TT.

Other topics this week include:

Utility of a Clinical Prediction Rule to Exclude Pulmonary Embolism Among Low-Risk Emergency Department Patients: Reason to PERC Up

Opioid Analgesic Use and Risk for Invasive Pneumococcal Diseases: A Nested Case-Control Study

Nusinersen versus Sham Control in Later-Onset Spinal Muscular Atrophy

Until next week, y’all listen up and make healthy choices.

Listen to the latest episode of PodMed TT here.