Enter your email address below then click the ADD ME button. Mammography Importance of screening 1. The concept of screening for cancer is simple. Instead of waiting for disease to become obvious, i.e. until symptoms occur, healthy individuals are tested to see if they have disease at an earlier stage.
Screening tests are available for many types of cancer.
In general terms, a screening test must meet several criteria to be of practical use. This means that it only detects the disease it is looking for. For example, if a test is positive for a number of different diseases, then you cannot tell which is present. This means that if the disease is present, the test must detect it. For example, if a test is carried out on a patient who has the disease but the result is negative, then the test is false.