4 ms·

I bet in the 70s it became easier to detect .

by zitterbewegung 9y ago

jonsen 9y ago
And then a period with a lot of false positives.
Retric 9y ago
Deaths from cancer are not subtitle. This is measuring the number of deaths not the rate of early detection.
- thaumasiotes 9y ago
  "Deaths within 5 years" are strongly affected by when you start the 5 year clock. The earlier you detect cancer, the better your 5-year survival rate will be.
  - Retric 9y ago
    Without treatment they don't change much. It's detection followed by treatment that changes anything. And discounting early detection as a part of treatment is horribly misleading.
    - thaumasiotes 9y ago
      I'm finding it difficult to imagine how you think this could possibly work. Cancers start small and develop into larger problems over time. Consider a hypothetical patient who develops cancer at the age of 70 and dies of it, untreated, at the age of 78. If the cancer is detected at the age of 75, detection will lower the 5-year survival rate, since the patient dies after three years of "having cancer". If it is detected at 72, detection increases the 5-year survival rate, since the patient now dies after 6 years. Without treatment, early detection has a very strong impact on 5-year survival rates.
      - Retric 9y ago
        Untreated cancer kills people very quickly effectively by definition. Basically if you have a lump that's not going to kill you quickly it's not cancer. This is why Mammograms are every 1 or 2 years. If you could wait 4 years without treatment early detection would be less of an issue. PS: People generally assume a lump becomes cancer as soon as it starts to form. But the general case is you get a lot of little growths from pre-cancerous cells which are predisposed to cancer. Then one or more of those cells become cancer and then you die fairly quickly after that transition.
        thaumasiotes 9y ago
        Cancer is defined based on the growth rate of the tumor (some other characteristics contribute, like propensity to spread from one area of the body to another), not based on how long you can live with it. Even the xkcd comic will tell you that no matter how bad your cancer currently is, you might end up living for a long time to come.

I bet in the 70s it became easier to detect .

jonsen 9y ago

And then a period with a lot of false positives.

Retric 9y ago

Deaths from cancer are not subtitle. This is measuring the number of deaths not the rate of early detection.

thaumasiotes 9y ago
"Deaths within 5 years" are strongly affected by when you start the 5 year clock. The earlier you detect cancer, the better your 5-year survival rate will be.
- Retric 9y ago
  Without treatment they don't change much. It's detection followed by treatment that changes anything. And discounting early detection as a part of treatment is horribly misleading.
  - thaumasiotes 9y ago
    I'm finding it difficult to imagine how you think this could possibly work. Cancers start small and develop into larger problems over time. Consider a hypothetical patient who develops cancer at the age of 70 and dies of it, untreated, at the age of 78. If the cancer is detected at the age of 75, detection will lower the 5-year survival rate, since the patient dies after three years of "having cancer". If it is detected at 72, detection increases the 5-year survival rate, since the patient now dies after 6 years. Without treatment, early detection has a very strong impact on 5-year survival rates.
    - Retric 9y ago
      Untreated cancer kills people very quickly effectively by definition. Basically if you have a lump that's not going to kill you quickly it's not cancer. This is why Mammograms are every 1 or 2 years. If you could wait 4 years without treatment early detection would be less of an issue. PS: People generally assume a lump becomes cancer as soon as it starts to form. But the general case is you get a lot of little growths from pre-cancerous cells which are predisposed to cancer. Then one or more of those cells become cancer and then you die fairly quickly after that transition.
      - thaumasiotes 9y ago
        Cancer is defined based on the growth rate of the tumor (some other characteristics contribute, like propensity to spread from one area of the body to another), not based on how long you can live with it. Even the xkcd comic will tell you that no matter how bad your cancer currently is, you might end up living for a long time to come.