QUATERNARY PREVENTION: THE SOLUTION FOR OVERDIAGNOSIS

In a world ever more dominated by technological resources, it is natural that they be used in healthcare as well. We have witnessed technology frequently being used in clinical practice. The undiscriminated use of imaging technology to screen for diseases, many times regardless of the clinical criteria for such, lead to an increase in false positive cases, iatrogenesis and unnecessary healthcare expenses. We call this “overdiagnosis”, whereas the act of preventing the occurrence of medical interventions is called “quaternary prevention”. The purpose of this paper is to review this topic which is so relevant to optimal clinical practice. The methodology employed involved the use of keywords such as “ooverdiagnosis” and “quaternary prevention” in the main databases on human healthcare. We observed that selective screening, through the use of well-defined protocols that take into account absolute and non-relative risk, increases the cost-effectiveness of the requested imaging tests. The goal is to outline patients who benefitted from more than one preventive action and, later, from certain medical interventions, Consequently, the high-risk approach improves the risk-benefit ratio, avoids interference in those cases which do not fulfill the established criteria and relieves the burden from healthcare systems, with the rational use of financial resources. In summary, these measures are necessary to promote greater safety and well-being to patients, as well as cost-effectiveness for healthcare management and professionals.