Table 1

Characteristics of papers in which overdiagnosis was a dominant theme, with the results shown for the total number of articles, the four largest clinical fields, all other remaining clinical fields and studies not addressing a specific clinical field

	Total (n=1851) (%)	Oncological disorders (n=920) (%)	Mental disorders (n=171) (%)	Infectious diseases (n=143) (%)	Cardiovascular disorders (n=105) (%)	Other clinical fields (n=390) (%)	No specific clinical field (n=122) (%)
Study aim
Methodological	20	30	11	4	10	4	34
Non-methodological	80	70	89	96	90	96	66
Article type
Primary study	58	55	53	85	61	69	27
Narrative review	24	22	32	9	24	22	52
Systematic review	9	12	8	1	10	5	11
Commentary	9	11	8	6	6	4	10
Diagnostic test
Imaging	32	48	3	4	47	19	7
Medical examination	17	3	58	26	26	30	4
Biomarker	15	16	3	29	10	16	3
Histology	13	17	0	21	2	11	2
Prediction model	3	4	1	2	3	4	1
Various	21	13	35	18	12	20	84
Screening
Yes	43	75	5	10	15	10	20
No	57	25	95	90	85	90	80
Overdiagnosis context
Overdiagnosis estimation	53	57	22	63	65	60	16
Disease definition	15	8	46	13	14	22	8
Overdiagnosis communication	3	5	2	0.7	0	0.8	3
Incidental findings	0.8	0.8	0	0	1	1	2
Genomics	0.4	0.3	0	0	1	0	3
Other*	28	29	30	24	19	16	67

*Subcategories in this category include: overdiagnosis definition, drivers and consequences of overdiagnosis and trend studies suggesting overdiagnosis.