Cancer DNA is detectable in blood years before diagnosis

(www.sciencenews.org)

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mikert89 ◴[18 Jul 25 20:12 UTC] No.44609276[source]▶

The big secret is that they could detect cancer very early in most people, but the health care companies don't want to pay for the screening. You can pay out of pocket for these procedures. I was told this by a cancer researcher

EDIT:

Adding these caveats:

1. There is a ton of nuance in the diagnosis, since most people have a small amount of cancer in their blood at all times

2. The screenings are 5-10k + follow up appointments to actually see if its real cancer

3. All in cost then could be much higher per person

4. These tests arent something that are currently produced to be used at mass scale

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daedrdev ◴[18 Jul 25 20:29 UTC] No.44609460[source]▶

>>44609276 #

Doing this could be actively worse for you and society based on the false positive rate. Testing and accidental unneeded treatment carry very real risks that could lead to net suffering and more death or damage if enough people are tested.

replies(1): >>44609499 #

1. mikert89 ◴[18 Jul 25 20:32 UTC] No.44609499[source]▶

>>44609460 #

This is a collectivist opinion on something which is very personal

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2. rscho ◴[18 Jul 25 20:34 UTC] No.44609534[source]▶

>>44609499 (TP) #

It's not personal, it's perfectly rational statistics, i.e. epidemiology. Designing screening strategies is not an amateur's game.

3. daedrdev ◴[18 Jul 25 20:47 UTC] No.44609661[source]▶

>>44609499 (TP) #

Would you take a test if doing so statistically increases your probability of death?

Is it moral for a doctor to give a test they think is going to increase someone's chance of death.

replies(1): >>44610281 #

4. twothreeone ◴[18 Jul 25 22:00 UTC] No.44610281[source]▶

>>44609661 #

That's just wrong. Taking a test doesn't do anything to the data-generating process, your chance of death is 100%. The test merely informs your posterior about the timing of the event.

replies(1): >>44610932 #

5. rscho ◴[18 Jul 25 23:23 UTC] No.44610932{3}[source]▶

>>44610281 #

The timing is pretty important to most people, and is actually the whole point of taking the test in the first place so the generating process and the test are not independent. See ?! What you said is just wrong too ! ;-)

6. surgical_fire ◴[19 Jul 25 11:32 UTC] No.44614602[source]▶

>>44609499 (TP) #

Public healthcare policy is absolutely not something personal.

It involves costs of healthcare for all people involved, workload on health professionals, hospital occupancy, etc and so forth.

If the rate of false positives in these tests are too high, people that need treatment for their actual illnesses might be on a waiting list because too many are doing follow-up screening and biopsies for non-issues.

And to address your silly "collectivist" fear-mongering, your hyper-individualist mentality is a societal disease. We could do with some more collectivism, in the sense that people have a better understanding of the constraints and conditions of the society they are inserted in.

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