How helpful is cancer screening?

Well, that depends on the kind of cancer.

This article very nicely addresses how many forms of cancer (such as thyroid, breast and prostate) are often very indolent.  The problem is that routine screening is most likely to find these harmless tumors and most likely to miss rapidly fatal malignancies.

The study of cancers at the genetic and molecular level offers more promise in turning testing into a more effective way of saving lives and also of avoiding unnecessary over-treatment.