4 ms·
And then what? Blast with chemo? Radiation? We don't have proper tools to stop cancer yet.
by adamredwoods 4y ago
And then what? Blast with chemo? Radiation? We don't have proper tools to stop cancer yet.
- bergenty 4y agoSo you’d rather not know?
- refurb 4y agoIf it's not actionable information, then it's not worth the time or the cost. "Our test indicates you have a 90% chance of <tumor type> cancer cells somewhere in your body. There is no solid tumor, so there is nothing to remove. We can do more work-up to try and find it, but unfortunately the government won't reimburse the cost because it's not cost-effective. Or we could just start giving you chemotherapy for a year, then check later and see if there is any cancer. But there is a chance this is a false postive and you don't have any cancer at all. How do you want to proceed?"
- FollowingTheDao 4y agoAt this point, since we don’t know if these early biomarkers lead to any significant harmful outcomes, yes, I would rather not know. If after they do a few decades of test with This and show me that The DNA they found was linked to premature death, then maybe.
- yazaddaruvala 4y agoThe smaller it is, the safer the operation, the less chemo needed, etc.
- doctoring 4y agoWait, but we do have the tools... We can (and do) cure so many cancers. Usually with surgery, +/- chemo/radiation. Sometimes just radiation. It's hard to overstate how curable most cancers are at early stage -- for some it's well over 90% and approaching 100%. The whole point of these screening tests is to try to find more cancers at more curable stages.