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And very rarely they result in cure. Sometimes, they give you some years till recurrence kicks in. Mostly, they make your last years very miserable.
And this one does the same, as it's just a more localized version of chemo.
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The problem is that even the most aggressive combinations of treatments haven't proved to actually work in practice, and death rates for most cancers have barely budged in the last 30 yrs. [citation needed]
I can't help you with a citation for that, but I can give you citations for the opposite claim "A major decline in cancer mortality has been occurring in the United States for the past 50 years, affecting birth cohorts born as long as 80 years ago. [...] These findings suggest that improvements in cancer detection, treatment, and/or prevention have reduced the risk of cancer death across the life span for individuals…
The problem with moderation on HN (and other sites) is that all you have to do to be upmodded is to assert something firmly enough. It doesn't have to be even remotely true; people will mod it up regardless. Annoying as hell, and potentially destructive to public discourse when it's as blatantly wrong as the grandparent's post was.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I can't help you with a citation for that, but I can give you citations for the opposite claim "A major decline in cancer mortality has been occurring in the United States for the past 50 years, affecting birth cohorts born as long as 80 years ago. [...] These findings suggest that improvements in cancer detection, treatment, and/or prevention have reduced the risk of cancer death across the life span for individuals…
Which is what I was fishing for, thanks. :) The problem with moderation on HN (and other sites) is that all you have to do to be upmodded is to assert something firmly enough. It doesn't have to be even remotely true; people will mod it up regardless. Annoying as hell, and potentially destructive to public discourse when it's as blatantly wrong as the grandparent's post was.
The article cited does not claim we've improved cancer treatments - only that mortality from cancer for certain age groups has decreased according to their analysis, which could be from a number of reasons. To my knowledge, one of those reasons is not that a variety of prevalent cancers has been cured to any substantial degree. Also, just because you can find a published article that claims something doesn't mean it's true (although it is a much better chance in the scientific literature versus popular press due to peer review). Especially in an active area like cancer with 10k+ papers, you can basically find a paper that will support any viewpoint.
The NYT is running a great series on cancer treatment that gets into these matters, I should have cited before, here's one of them:
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/09/02/health/research/02cancerdr...