A Discover Magazine article examines the fear that the word "cancer" raises and whether it might be reasonable to stop calling certain diseases cancer. Specifically, the author and researchers at Dartmouth contend that patients with very treatable cancers, that is, cancers that will not progress, overtreat their cancers because of the fear of cancer. The reason for this is perhaps in how people perceive risk, and how people manage their anxiety about risk. Cancer sounds scary,and people are inclined to treat it aggressively in order to manage their anxiety about the unknown and to feel a certain amount of control over a scary situation. But overtreatment carries its own medical risk and can increase patient anxiety, even when they are undergoing treatment to manage their anxiety over the disease.
It is an interesting question: would changing the name change the perception of risk?
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