3 ms·

I'm pleasantly surprised at the effort being put into avoiding false positives. I can easily imagine a doctor put in a tough spot whilst deciding to treat a po

I'm pleasantly surprised at the effort being put into avoiding false positives. I can easily imagine a doctor put in a tough spot whilst deciding to treat a possible early stage cancer. If he gets it wrong a malpractice lawsuit is surely to ensue. I really hope we live to see a future where physicians have less noisy data to work with, especially regarding early detection.

SoftTalker 4y ago
I'm not entirely convinced that "early detection" results in anything but more worry, more time in doctors' offices and clinics, more time taking very unpleasant medicine, more time undergoing surgery, and absolutely devastating financial consequences.
- gubneor 4y ago
  Late detection is better? Ignorance is bliss? There is no golden path? What if early detection failures at scale lead to better medicine? What if more patients lead to more science? Resigning to, "fuck it, we aren't there yet" seems overly defeatist.
  - inglor_cz 4y ago
    Not the OP, but to use an analogy, we are obviously misusing antibiotics "just in case". Between "no cancer" and "definitely cancer", there will be a gray field of "maybe cancers" and doctors will feel the psychological push to "do something" about them. Overmedication can kill as well, and it can definitely injure. There is a reason why doctors are reminded of the ancient "First, do not harm" maxim during their training - it is still valid. I am not yet convinced that this is going to be a problem, but I don't want to ignore this scenario either.
- onetokeoverthe 4y ago
adamredwoods 4y ago
Not just early detection, but detection in remission and being able to accurately tell which treatments are working!