General health checks unlikely to be beneficial

Wednesday 19 June 2019

Brian McAvoy

PEARLS No.

624

Clinical question

How effective are general health checks in adults for reducing morbidity and mortality from disease?

Bottom line

Health checks had little or no effect on the risk of death from any cause (high‐certainty evidence) or on the risk of death from cancer (high‐certainty evidence), and probably had little or no effect on the risk of death from cardiovascular causes (moderate‐certainty evidence). Likewise, health checks had little or no effect on heart disease (high‐certainty evidence) and probably had little or no effect on stroke (moderate‐certainty evidence).

Caveat

Physicians should not stop clinically motivated testing and preventive activities, as such activities may be an important reason why an effect of general health checks has not been shown.

Context

General health checks are common elements of healthcare in some countries. They aim to detect disease and risk factors for disease with the purpose of reducing morbidity and mortality. Most of the commonly used individual screening tests offered in general health checks have been incompletely studied. Also, screening leads to increased use of diagnostic and therapeutic interventions, which can be harmful as well as beneficial.

Cochrane Systematic Review

Krogsball LT et al. General health checks in adults for reducing morbidity and mortality from disease. Cochrane Reviews, 2019, Issue 1. Art. No.: CD009009.DOI: 10.1002/14651858. CD009009. This review contains 17 studies involving 251,891 participants.

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