I understand insurance may be a cause that a test cannot be administered to someone that doesn’t fit their criteria. What I want to know is if there is a scientific reason a test will work on someone who is 45 but not on someone who is 40. Or someone who is 50 but not someone who is 42.
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Below a certain age, the negative consequences of false positives (totaled across the population) are worse than the total number of false negatives – missing those few very rare cases.
Below a certain age, your risk of cancer is so low that any “positives” are very likely to be false positives, so you are exposed to extra testing, biopsies, etc (and their risks) unnecessarily.
However, if you have a family history of cancer, your doctor will likely recommend screening earlier and/or more often than they would recommend to their “average” patient.
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