Midwest-Mountain Veterans Engineering Resource Center, VA Nebraska Western Iowa Health care System, Omaha, NE, USA.
Best Pract Res Clin Endocrinol Metab. 2012 Feb;26(1):3-8. doi: 10.1016/j.beem.2011.08.006.
The evolution of new diagnostic techniques has revolutionized the practice of medicine and in fact, the nature of medicine itself. Technology has also expanded the "visual" field of medicine: the naked eye was assisted by the light microscope and then electron microscope to see smaller and smaller features while radiology has permitted "non-invasive" identification of internal structures. However, there are unintended consequences one of which is the discovery of an anomaly during the course of looking for something else - incidental findings and incidentalomas. Technology in general and imaging specifically offer much in service to physicians and their patients. However, it behoves physicians to ensure that technology supplements but does not replace good clinical judgment. This essay aims to put the issue of incidental findings related to advancing technology (especially imaging technology) into a broader context.
新诊断技术的发展彻底改变了医学实践，甚至改变了医学本身的性质。技术还扩大了医学的“视野”：肉眼借助于光学显微镜，然后是电子显微镜，来观察越来越小的特征，而放射学则允许“非侵入性”识别内部结构。然而，这也带来了意想不到的后果，其中之一就是在寻找其他东西的过程中发现了异常——偶然发现和偶发瘤。一般来说，技术，特别是影像学，为医生及其患者提供了很多服务。然而，医生有责任确保技术是辅助而不是取代良好的临床判断。本文旨在将与先进技术（特别是影像学技术）相关的偶然发现问题置于更广泛的背景下。
