> The rule of thumb with cancer is that the earlier you diagnose it, the more treatable it is. So yes, please detect cancers as early as possible. No one argue

> The rule of thumb with cancer is that the earlier you diagnose it, the more treatable it is. So yes, please detect cancers as early as possible. No one argues this is true. But there's mounting evidence that this is less true than one would have believed a couple of decades ago. * First, as the parent to your post says: if a cancer takes 3 years to go from stage 1 to stage 4, detecting the cancer at stage 1 will increase measured survival by 3 years even if your treatments do nothing. * Second, the stage at detection is also a measure of how aggressive the cancer is. That is, if you screen every year, and find 100 stage 4 cancers and 100 stage 1 cancers in your population... odds are the stage 4 cancers are much faster growing and more likely to become malignant. You didn't necessarily find them "earlier".