Prevention vs. cure

Hepatitis--cure and prevention.

Prevention is better than cure

The vast majority of gastric cancers are sporadic. However, 1-3% arise as a result of inherited gastric cancer predisposition syndromes, generally referred to as hereditary diffuse gastric cancer (HDGC). Of those families that fulfill the clinical criteria for HGDC only 25% have a CDH1 germline mutation. No reliable surveillance technique exists for individuals with HDGC. Difficult decisions ha...

Treatment of myeloma: cure vs control.

Prevention and cure? Or: is an ounce of prevention worth a pound of cure?

A common problem of everyday life is that of deciding how much to spend to avoid something unpleasant happening, and then, if the worst comes to the worst, of deciding how much to spend to remedy the situation. This paper provides a framework for the analysis of such problems, focussing specifically on the appropriate allocation of expenditure on (preventative and curative) health care. A two-s...

Is clinical prevention better than cure?

In wealthy countries, the focus of clinical care is changing from cure to prevention, to anticipate future diseases in currently healthy individuals. We review the challenges that clinicians face, such as: prevention can cause harm; predicting the benefi t of preventive activities for the individual, as opposed to the group, can be diffi cult; prevention is not of equal value to everyone; and p...