Overtreatment

CHICAGO — Mitigating overtreatment in glaucoma requires a willingness to wait to treat patients, which can be cultivated by embracing the uncertainty of common glaucoma measurements, according to a speaker here.

Overdiagnosis and overtreatment are growing problems in glaucoma, and ophthalmologists must work toward finding solutions, according to a lecturer at the American Glaucoma Society meeting.

Intraoperative assessment of sentinel lymph nodes during mastectomy significantly increased the likelihood of aggressive axillary treatment vs. postsurgical assessment of lymph node biopsies among certain women with breast cancer.

Many patients with tuberculosis who were potentially eligible for a shorter 4-month therapy were treated with standard 6-month courses, according to a recent study.

Overtreatment of adults with low risk differentiated thyroid cancer is more common using the 2015 Dutch Thyroid Cancer guideline compared with the American Thyroid Association’s guideline, according to study findings.

Type 2 diabetes overtreatment among nursing home residents is common, with few residents having their medication regimens appropriately deintensified, according to results published in the Journal of the American Geriatric Society.

Recommendations endorsed by the American Board of Internal Medicine Foundation’s Choosing Wisely initiative to discontinue the use of two low-value screening services had a minimal impact in practice, suggesting policy changes to remove coverage of such services may be needed to reduce unnecessary screening, researchers reported in JAMA Internal Medicine.