Comment by bonsai_spool
11 days ago
That’s not the correct framing - your assertion first lacks evidence about why we should screen better. In fact, we aren’t improving longevity in many early diagnoses, and may be treating people whose immune system would resolve the cancers.
Further, the denominator is asymptomatic people who were able to get MRI’s they didn’t need. That doesn’t tell us anything about the normal world.
> we aren’t improving longevity in many early diagnoses, and may be treating people whose immune system would resolve the cancers.
Even assuming your statement is true, if what is detected is small enough for that there's no reason "treatment" can't just be monitoring it's size with follow-up scans.
> Even assuming your statement is true,
It is true. You need only trouble yourself to search. Here's a recent paper, for example: https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamainternalmedicine/articl...
> if what is detected is small enough for that there's no reason "treatment" can't just be monitoring it's size with follow-up scans.
This is false—it is exactly what the article is trying to convey. There is a risk to any test, and one of the major risks for imaging is getting treatment for things that would never cause symptoms or require intervention.
If the cancer is vizible in MRI or CT scans, the immune system already failed to "resolve" it and will not do so in the future, at least not without external help.
> If the cancer is vizible in MRI or CT scans, the immune system already failed to "resolve" it and will not do so in the future, at least not without external help.
This is false. A simple google search for spontaneous remission (or honestly anything similar) would show/have shown you this.