3 ms·

For those interested in reading the actual paper, this appears to be it (open access too): https://www.annalsofoncology.org/article/S0923-7534(21)02046-9/fullt

For those interested in reading the actual paper, this appears to be it (open access too): https://www.annalsofoncology.org/article/S0923-7534(21)02046-9/fulltext https://www.annalsofoncology.org/article/S0923-7534(21)02046... I’ve only skimmed it, but seen quite a few limitations, notably those with “non-malignant conditions at enrolment” (it would be nice to know more what that means), previous cancer or recent corticosteroids use were excluded. Additionally, it’s a case controlled trial which don’t always translate to screening tools (as mentioned in their own discussion). The problem with screening is that you are doing something on healthy patients, so particularly for rare cancers even a small risk of a false positive is significant. In this case it’s 99.5%. So if you test 1,000,000 people, 5000 (*correction from 500) people will come up positive. This is great for common diseases, but if it’s rare and only 1 in a million has it then you have got 5000 false positive for every 1 positive. I think this will likely be a useful test (if it translates well to a wider screening population), but it’s not as good as it first seems.

robocat 5y ago
> 500 people 5000 people
- Engineering-MD 5y ago
  Yes thank you missed a zero
myle 5y ago
Cancer is not that rare. It ia one of the most common causes of death. I believe second to heart attacks.
vharuck 5y ago
>“non-malignant conditions at enrolment” (it would be nice to know more what that means) My guess is they're referring to the neoplasm behavior codes defined by the WHO in the International Classification of Diseases for Oncology (see article's references for info). Which means "malignant" is a neoplasm which has begun spreading beyond the tissue it appeared in. Non-malignant neoplasms are either benign (not likely to ever spread), borderline (could go either way), or in situ (still in the original tissue, but it will spread). North American cancer registries typically don't even bother collecting records of benign or borderline tumors. The only exceptions are brain tumors, which can be deadly without metastasizing. Registries also don't collect cervical cancer in situ records because there are so many and a lot of physicians never bothered reporting them. And finally, oncologists and epidemiologists classify urinary bladder cancer in situ as malignant because it's really hard for physicians to differentiate. Better safe than sorry, in case.

robocat 5y ago

> 500 people 5000 people

Engineering-MD 5y ago
Yes thank you missed a zero

myle 5y ago

Cancer is not that rare. It ia one of the most common causes of death. I believe second to heart attacks.

vharuck 5y ago

>“non-malignant conditions at enrolment” (it would be nice to know more what that means) My guess is they're referring to the neoplasm behavior codes defined by the WHO in the International Classification of Diseases for Oncology (see article's references for info). Which means "malignant" is a neoplasm which has begun spreading beyond the tissue it appeared in. Non-malignant neoplasms are either benign (not likely to ever spread), borderline (could go either way), or in situ (still in the original tissue, but it will spread). North American cancer registries typically don't even bother collecting records of benign or borderline tumors. The only exceptions are brain tumors, which can be deadly without metastasizing. Registries also don't collect cervical cancer in situ records because there are so many and a lot of physicians never bothered reporting them. And finally, oncologists and epidemiologists classify urinary bladder cancer in situ as malignant because it's really hard for physicians to differentiate. Better safe than sorry, in case.