Comments
Molnan t1_iuk8n2i wrote
You are not missing the point. There's a myth going around in health-related media that too much testing can be a bad thing. Assuming the tests themselves are harmless (and they do, that's not the issue), that's total nonsense, of course, because you can always get the "less testing" alleged advantage by simply not reading the results of some tests.
IIRC, the source of this myth is a study in the UK on the effects of a program for mass periodic testing for uterine cancer (or something like that). The tests were done, I think, every 3 years or so, which meant that most detected tumors were benign, because most aggressive tumors gave symptoms before they were detected in routine tests. So many women were having surgeries they didn't need, and few benefited from early detection of aggressive tumors. I'm quoting from memory, so take it with a grain of salt, but I think that's the gist of it.
You see how dumb it is to say this was a problem of "too much testing", right?
globehater OP t1_iujo1nd wrote
Submission Statement: "More testing" is not always the best answer to cancer prevention. Although new MCED (Multi-Cancer Early Detection) blood tests promise to be able cleverly find trace evidence of tumor DNA in the blood, confirming the test results is going to require even more costly follow-up tests. And survival rates might not actually be improved by knowing earlier about tumors that prove to be benign.
How can we make sure this technology leads to longer lives?
damp_s t1_iuk4gyb wrote
Presumably the POV of this is in the sentence that states that testing for tumours that are benign implies that earlier testing will lead to maybes so specific testing will be ordered and therefore there’s more “traffic” in the system and x% of these will be benign and these people will prevent the rest of patients being seen as soon?
greenmachine11235 t1_iuk0tuy wrote
How exactly does more testing mean lower survival rates? Even the most invasive biopsy is fairly risk free, testing isn't treatment.
FuturologyBot t1_iujsc5q wrote
The following submission statement was provided by /u/globehater:
Submission Statement: "More testing" is not always the best answer to cancer prevention. Although new MCED (Multi-Cancer Early Detection) blood tests promise to be able cleverly find trace evidence of tumor DNA in the blood, confirming the test results is going to require even more costly follow-up tests. And survival rates might not actually be improved by knowing earlier about tumors that prove to be benign.
How can we make sure this technology leads to longer lives?
Please reply to OP's comment here: https://old.reddit.com/r/Futurology/comments/yiomdj/a_blood_test_that_screens_for_multiple_cancers_at/iujo1nd/
[deleted] t1_iuk3a4a wrote
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[deleted] t1_iuk3ejy wrote
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pumpkin20222002 t1_iuk6aq0 wrote
Always interesting, healthcare is the biggest piece of US GDP at 20%. Meaning, a lotttttt of money and economic capital is spent on people being sick. Imagine if people didn't smoke, exercised, ate a bit healthier and got screened regularly and cheaply for disease. It is very possible our economy would shrink and be taken back decades.
Mokebe890 t1_iuk3amk wrote
So let me get clear. We always hear that early knowladge of cancer increase the possibility of treatment by a lot. But now if we will have multiple screen at once it wont help us? Im kinda missing the point here.