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Blood test that finds 50 types of cancer is accurate enough to be rolled out

theguardian.com

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Re: Blood test that finds 50 types of cancer is accurate enough to be rolled out

#21

Post by dannyw »

Gatsky wrote: post #15
reacharavindh wrote: post #3

This is one of those medical revolutions that I am waiting dearly for. Facilities that are not hospitals(to avoid the risk of occupying medical devices that sick people need) built to _regulary_ check up otherwise healthy people for preventive care. Heck, I have so many alerts defined on my monitoring setup for servers to watch for signals of failure before they get too big. But, my own body is not observed until som…

Note this test is about early detection, not prevention. If your pancreatic cancer is detected early, you will still need to have your insides rearranged to get it out.

That's a critically better health outcome though. It's like fixing a corruption bug when you detect it on one server, versus finding out there's corruption in every shard and all of your backups.

Re: Blood test that finds 50 types of cancer is accurate enough to be rolled out

#22

Post by konschubert »

konschubert wrote: post #17

If you’re tested positive, what’s the probably that you actually have cancer? (The article states 0.5% false positive rate and about 50% true positive rate, but I would need to know the the prevalence of cancer in the population to compute what I am asking for).

Let’s say 1% of ppl have cancer at any given moment -

So if we test a random person, there is a 1% * 50% = 0.5% chance that person is tested positive for cancer because they have cancer.

And a 0.99% * 0.5% = 0.5% chance that a person is tested false positive.

This means if the test shows positive for somebody, it’s about 50-50 that they actually have cancer - correct?

Re: Blood test that finds 50 types of cancer is accurate enough to be rolled out

#23

Post by konschubert »

konschubert wrote: post #22
konschubert wrote: post #17

If you’re tested positive, what’s the probably that you actually have cancer? (The article states 0.5% false positive rate and about 50% true positive rate, but I would need to know the the prevalence of cancer in the population to compute what I am asking for).

Let’s say 1% of ppl have cancer at any given moment - So if we test a random person, there is a 1% * 50% = 0.5% chance that person is tested positive for cancer because they have cancer. And a 0.99% * 0.5% = 0.5% chance that a person is tested false positive. This means if the test shows positive for somebody, it’s about 50-50 that they actually have cancer - correct?

This is actually pretty good and could reasonably be used for screening in higher-risk populations.

Re: Blood test that finds 50 types of cancer is accurate enough to be rolled out

#24

Post by sbelskie »

radu_floricica wrote: post #16
sbelskie wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A big part of this is the fact that learning information (about a disease or condition) early is often NOT the same thing as learning information that will change a patient’s clinical outcome.

I never understood this. I mean I totally get the concept, but I don't get how it came to influence policy. Put it like this: how many people are you willing to kill to make sure people don't find out they're sick? Because that's what it boils down to. And it sounds... sociopathic.

I’m not sure I understand what you mean. It seems like you’re framing my motivation as not wanting people to know that they are sick and being willing to trade peoples lives to achieve that outcome, which I don’t think is at all what my above comment says.

Re: Blood test that finds 50 types of cancer is accurate enough to be rolled out

#25

Post by carlmr »

dannyw wrote: post #21
Gatsky wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Note this test is about early detection, not prevention. If your pancreatic cancer is detected early, you will still need to have your insides rearranged to get it out.

That's a critically better health outcome though. It's like fixing a corruption bug when you detect it on one server, versus finding out there's corruption in every shard and all of your backups.

Ransomware infecting one machine or all machines including backups would also be a good analogy.

Re: Blood test that finds 50 types of cancer is accurate enough to be rolled out

#26

Post by petra »

Gatsky wrote: post #15
reacharavindh wrote: post #3

This is one of those medical revolutions that I am waiting dearly for. Facilities that are not hospitals(to avoid the risk of occupying medical devices that sick people need) built to _regulary_ check up otherwise healthy people for preventive care. Heck, I have so many alerts defined on my monitoring setup for servers to watch for signals of failure before they get too big. But, my own body is not observed until som…

Note this test is about early detection, not prevention. If your pancreatic cancer is detected early, you will still need to have your insides rearranged to get it out.

There's a big difference(in success rate, in damage to the body, in costs) when treating a tumor at 1 cubic mm size or less, versus a big tumor, versus a malignant tumor.

Re: Blood test that finds 50 types of cancer is accurate enough to be rolled out

#27

Post by carlmr »

xwdv wrote: post #6
reacharavindh wrote: post #3

This is one of those medical revolutions that I am waiting dearly for. Facilities that are not hospitals(to avoid the risk of occupying medical devices that sick people need) built to _regulary_ check up otherwise healthy people for preventive care. Heck, I have so many alerts defined on my monitoring setup for servers to watch for signals of failure before they get too big. But, my own body is not observed until som…

My experience is people don’t really care much about their bodies beyond the aesthetics. Most treat it like a dumpster and ingest whatever crap feels good and hope for the best. Caring too much makes you some sort of health freak in their eyes, with way too much time on your hands.

I'm not sure this is true. At least in my friend circle most people put a lot of care into their nutrition and fitness.

Maybe talk to your friends about it and get them to be healthier?

Re: Blood test that finds 50 types of cancer is accurate enough to be rolled out

#29

Post by dabbledash »

radu_floricica wrote: post #16
sbelskie wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A big part of this is the fact that learning information (about a disease or condition) early is often NOT the same thing as learning information that will change a patient’s clinical outcome.

I never understood this. I mean I totally get the concept, but I don't get how it came to influence policy. Put it like this: how many people are you willing to kill to make sure people don't find out they're sick? Because that's what it boils down to. And it sounds... sociopathic.

The idea is that treatment also has risks and false positives are an issue.

If you gave a mammogram to every 20 year old woman, you would end up doing a large number of unnecessary biopsies and you’d find almost no real cancer. In the end, you’d lose more people than you would save.

Or that’s the idea. I’m no expert in this but it makes sense to me conceptually.

Re: Blood test that finds 50 types of cancer is accurate enough to be rolled out

#30

Post by Tolyzz »

reacharavindh wrote: post #3

This is one of those medical revolutions that I am waiting dearly for. Facilities that are not hospitals(to avoid the risk of occupying medical devices that sick people need) built to _regulary_ check up otherwise healthy people for preventive care. Heck, I have so many alerts defined on my monitoring setup for servers to watch for signals of failure before they get too big. But, my own body is not observed until som…

Cause things break down all the time. And everything can look like early signs of trouble.

There are lot useless docs and surgeons waiting to perform unnecessary expensive procedures much like building contractors. Oh that pipe is leaking let's just replace this entire load bearing wall etc cause we have this new cool machine that can. Second opinions are over rated cause the majority don't care. There is an endless demand for their trade.

My dad lost his hearing at 35 after they performed surgery to remove a tumor they detected. They detected the same Tumor in my brother when he was in his 20s and wanted to operate with no guarantee of hearing preservation. He declined. He is going to turn 40 soon and would have most likely been deaf for 20 years if he had gone through with it. Minor issues with his balance but other than that he is fine even though tumor gets tracked every couple years and is still growing.

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