Incidentalomas Explained With Case History and someecard Humor.

Turn on the television these days and it's impossible to escape news stories describing breakthroughs in cancer diagnosis and treatment.  Excluding squamous cell and basal cell cancers of the skin, over 1.6 million Americans were diagnosed with cancer last year.  This cancer.org file has some great graphics and up-to-date data on America's cancer statistics from 2012.  Unfortunately, I believe  our cancer societies have failed to properly recognize the biggest threat to public safety since the invention of the doctor.  What might that be, you ask?  Incidentalomas.    I searched the  entire pdf file linked above and I couldn't find a single reference to this kind of tumor.    What is an incidentaloma?  Wikipedia has a nice review on the rapid rise in prevalence of this tumor.  Here is their definition: In medicine, an incidentaloma is a tumor (-oma) found by coincidence (incidental) without clinical symptoms or suspicion. What does that mean Wikipedia?  No clinical symptoms?  No suspicion?  Suspicion of what?  This sounds like a conspiracy theory to me.  Not to mention, what is the patient supposed to think about all this? ER:  Hi ma'am.  Remember that CT scan you demanded we get?  It shows you have an incidentaloma. Ma'am:  An incidental what? ER:  An incidentaloma. Ma'am.  Did my boyfriend do this to me? I'm going to kill him! ER:  No ma'am.  ...
Source: The Happy Hospitalist - Category: Internists and Doctors of Medicine Authors: Source Type: blogs