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You are looking at cancer deaths, which indeed have gone down from better treatments and better screening. This does not imply less incidence of cancer.
by andrepd 7y ago
You are looking at cancer deaths, which indeed have gone down from better treatments and better screening. This does not imply less incidence of cancer.
- aey 7y agoI think you just answered your own question. As detection improves, so will the rates at which cancer is detected.
- shkkmo 7y agoAFAIK, Better detection means earlier detection and may not lead to a decrease in cancers that are never detected.
- manicdee 7y agoIt leads to in increase in cancers detected before the person dies of non-cancer causes. Situation: person has an almost undetectable cancer. They see a doctor, no cancer detected, later that week they are shot by police at a routine road stop. We get in our time machine, go back a week and a bit, and supply the doctor with a better detection kit. Situation 2: person has an almost undetectable cancer. They see a doctor who refers them to a specialist, cancer detected, another notch on the cancer tally board. Later that week they are shot by police at a routine road stop. Nothing has changed except in the second case there’s another cancer detected. The person is still dead from non-cancer causes, just in one scenario they died as a haver-of-cancer and in the other they didn’t. Better/earlier detection will necessarily lead to a decrease in cancers that are never detected (which I interpret as an increase in cancers detected before mortality from other causes), otherwise it’s not better/earlier detection.