By mass screening or screening the population with different surveys, one can detect diseases such as cancer to a greater extent and at an early stage. Of course, the benefits are many if you detect an illness early: You can slow the course of the disease and prevent unnecessary death, but there are also a number of disadvantages that you wanted to highlight in today's seminar.

- There is a risk of erroneous diagnoses which then worry people unnecessarily, interventions that may not have been necessary, that is, the disease may not have developed as you think it would develop and it is of course whether the cost is reasonable or not in proportion to what you get, says Rolf Ahlzén Ethical expert at Region Värmland and one of the initiators of today's seminar.

debated

Examples of mass screening that occur today are mammography and discussions are constantly going on about which new diseases would be justified to screen. One of the most debated now is PSA screening for prostate cancer.

Hear Rolf Ahlzén comment on the problems with today's PSA test in the clip above.

What do you hope you will achieve at today's seminar day?

- I hope we get a good balance of pros and cons. I am convinced that we need to have some screening examinations, but I also believe that we need to have a sharp, open and constructive debate about which examinations are good and which are not.

Do not recommend mass screening

In Värmland, you can do PSA tests at your own request after the age of 50, but despite requests, it has not been introduced as a mass screening and the National Board of Health does not recommend this. The debate about PSA is in full swing and so are a number of new disease areas:

- Screening of the colon for colon cancer there are discussions about, gluten intolerance, early blood sugar change thus precursor to diabetes, atrial fibrillation. Yes, there are a number of groups who want to introduce screeening where it is not obvious, says Rolf Ahlzén.