3 ms·
I think you just answered your own question. As detection improves, so will the rates at which cancer is detected.
by aey 7y ago
I 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.