Are routine general health checks in healthy adults effective in preventing morbidity and mortality due to cardiovascular diseases and cancer? Summary of the evidence and implications for public health programmes

A Cochrane Review that sought to quantify the benefits and harms of general health checks included 14 trials conducted in Europe and North America that randomised 182,880 adults (18–65 years) unselected for disease or risk factors, to single or repeated health checks (screening multiple organ systems), with or without a life-style intervention, or to no health checks.Compared to no health checks, general health checks did not reduce total mortality, or mortality or morbidity due to cardiovascular disease or cancer, over 4 to 22 years of follow up (median 9 years). Health checks increased the number of new diagnoses and people using antihypertensive drugs in some trials. Other outcomes were poorly reported.General health screening in asymptomatic healthy adults is unlikely to yield clinically important benefits. Investigations guided by clinical indications in people at risk or with disease are more likely to result in clinically important benefits.