Police Commissioner Bill Bratton on Tuesday compared the NYPD’s past use of “stop and frisk” to needless cancer treatment, saying the controversial crime-fighting tactic was overused.

“It’s similar to you going to a doctor for cancer. He’s going to treat you with radiation, chemo [and] surgery, and you want it to be appropriate,” Bratton told an audience at the New-York Historical Society in Manhattan.

“After you’re feeling better, you don’t want him to keep giving you more radiation, more chemo . . . if, in fact, the disease is being dealt with appropriately.”

In the case of stop-and-frisk, he said, “The patient was getting better. Crime was down dramatically.”