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An unprecedented window into how diseases take hold years before symptoms appear

(www.bloomberg.com)
202 points helsinkiandrew | 2 comments | 18 Jul 25 08:55 UTC | HN request time: 0s | source
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chiefalchemist ◴[22 Jul 25 10:01 UTC] No.44645058[source]▶
It’s interesting they make no mention of trying to understand the body’s ability to self-defend and self-heal. That is, it’s possible to get X (e.g., cancer) and the immune system wins the fight (before it’s even detected).

In theory it’s possible the best early treatment is no treatment at all; that there might be such a thing as too-early detection.

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Jolter ◴[22 Jul 25 11:41 UTC] No.44645663[source]▶
This is a well known phenomenon in medicine. It is always carefully considered when making public health decisions regarding e.g. screening programs and intervention best practices.

For example, a PSA test is useful to detect cancer of the prostate, if a male patient has urination problems. But doing general screening for high PSA values in middle aged men is not considered a good idea, because there are too many false positives and it would likely lead to many unnecessary invasive interventions.

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1. Earw0rm ◴[22 Jul 25 12:09 UTC] No.44645874[source]▶
It's also why "early detection leads to longer survival" claims in cancer patients has to be treated with quite some care.

Two people develop a fatal cancer at T0. One is diagnosed at T1, the other at T2, both die at T3.

It looks like the first person survived longer with cancer than the second, but they didn't: the interventions had no effect, it's just a statistical artifact.

This is by no means always the case - earlier detected cancer is more treatable - but it still needs to be controlled for.

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2. chiefalchemist ◴[23 Jul 25 01:59 UTC] No.44655048[source]▶
And of course there’s always a riff on the placebo effect even when the intervention isn’t sugar pills. That is, success gets attributed to the approved intervention, but at the nuts & bolts level it had little or no effect. The body cured itself but the treatment gets the credit.