In 2012, a group of distinguished scientists convened at the National Cancer Institute (NCI) to discuss the problem of over diagnosis and hence overtreatment of cancer. This group published in 2014, the article entitled "Addressing over diagnosis and overtreatment in cancer" (Read the abstract Pub Med Reference (PMC4322920)). The group pointed out appropriately that cancer describes a wide range of diseases from indolent to fast growing lesions. They proposed a new terminology for indolent and precancerous disorders such as "indolent lesion of epithelial origin or IDLE”.
Among lesions they suggested would be overtreated low grade and intraductal breast lesions, low grade prostatic neoplasms and encapsulated thyroid neoplasms. The removal of the word "cancer" or "carcinoma" from the diagnosis of such lesions, which by their very nature haven't indolent clinical…