Population Screening

Population screening is type of prevention test for the hereditary diseases. It tries to find out the healthy people, who are going to become ill. We usually looking for some proteins or genes, which are connected to some disorder. It is very useful tool for searching of the hereditary metabolic diseases and cancer families.

This type of screening is focused on the population. The result can´t be connected directly with the diagnosis. Screening is not reliable enough. The follow-on test are then needed. We should examine just smaller groups at risk, which we have found in the population. Some of them can be false positive and we have to find it out.

The Criteria of Population Screening

 * 1) Screening diseases have to be quite freguent
 * 2) Test have to be as save as possible
 * 3) The way of getting the samples have to be easy and quick
 * 4) The test has to be low-cost
 * 5) We test just diseases, which we can cure
 * 6) The results have to have high specifity and sensitivity

Type of the Samples
The most common samples, which are used for the population screening are blood samples. Nowadays we are able to get also the bucal samples. It is necessary to get the samples in the easy and quick manner. It is the only change how to examine the huge number of persons. E.g. not everybody will agree with muscle biopsy.

The Advantages of the Screening

 * Prevention - it saves the costs of treatment (to substitute some proteins or enzymes). People at risk can change their lifestyle to prevent some of the disease.
 * Find the carriers of the hereditary disease before the first symptoms - the earlier you discover the disease the more effective the treatment should be (sclerosis multiplex, AML - amyotrofic lateral sclerosis)
 * Newborn blood spot test - looking for serious metabolic diseases in newborns (e.g.phenylketonuria)

The Disadvantages of the Screening

 * False positive test - people, who are not ill at all, go through the treatment, which is unnecessary. It can be harmful for their physical and mental state. The sensitivity and specifity have to be high.
 * Persuation of the healthy people - the population screening is based on the examination of the healthy people, who don´t have any symptoms, so sometimes it is very hard to explain them the importance of the screening.

Populaion Screening Programs

 * 1) Czech Republic: cancer – breast cancer, colorectal cancer, cervical cancer, prostate cancer (it is not paid by insurance!), metabolic diseases – phenylketonuria, cystic fibrosis
 * 2) USA (depends on the indivuald states): cancer – colorectal cancer, prostate cancer,breast cancer, metabolic diseases – cystic fibrosis

Related articles

 * PCR
 * Cancer Families
 * Breast cancer
 * Colorectal cancer
 * Cervical cancer
 * Cystic fibrosis
 * Phenylketonuria