Doctors should avoid saying ‘cancer’ for minor lesions – study

Researchers say patients are scared into invasive treatments for conditions unlikely to do harm

The word "cancer" should be dropped from some medical diagnoses because the term can scare people into invasive treatments they do not need, Australian and US researchers say.

An analysis published by the British Medical Journal on Monday described "cancer" as particularly problematic when used to describe some thyroid cancers less than 1cm in size, some low and intermediate grade breast cancers, and localised prostate cancer.