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U.S. cancer death rate has dropped by a third since 1991

wsj.com

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Re: U.S. cancer death rate has dropped by a third since 1991

#111

Post by dekhn »

chasil wrote: post #108
dekhn wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The word "implicated" in science normally means "correlated with" and can't really be considered a "solid link". Some of the articles cited in that section have sentences like "1 out 2 (50%) adult analyzed cases was positive, with 50% of stained tumor cells (this patient was a 22 years old female, coming from Napoli);" that don't follow the necessary standard of evidence. I continued to skim the linked articles and t…

This article appeared today. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34367905 "...several herpes viruses, which two-thirds of us carry, induce tumors in animal species." https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/4353788/ "A herpes virus causes Burkett's lymphoma in humans; another causes nasopharyngeal cancer in humans."

It's a lot more subtle than that. First off let me say that historically, demonstrating that a virus causes cancer has been a major bit of work, and many times people have mistakenly seen associations and falsely believed they were causal. second, I don't deny there are some cancers which are caused by viruses. But, you're referencing extremely rare cancers, not the cancers that make up the bulk of US (or world) deaths from cancer. My complaint is about taking these relatively rare situations and implying there's some sort of general underlying well-understood cause, when the reality is, in many situations, the virus itself did not specifically "cause" the cancer, but for complex biological reasons, it's "associated" with the cancer (which could manifest as increased susceptibility to getting particular types, or worse prognosis, or even possibly better outcome).

Re: U.S. cancer death rate has dropped by a third since 1991

#112

Post by dekhn »

tee_0 wrote: post #110
zw7 wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> An illness like diabetes presents very specific symptoms and doctors have been aware of diabetes for a very long time. The same is true for many kinds of cancer You can have diabetes and high blood pressure and cancer and not have symptoms. That's why we screen for them. If you have symptoms, it is no longer screening, it's diagnosing. A lot more screening is happening now than before the 70s so we are obviously fi…

I don’t buy it. Cancer that is screened eventually will present. It doesn’t change the amount of cancer that presents. Again, this changes survival but not diagnoses. People who abstain from living in the modern way almost never get cancer or diabetes. Is this because they aren’t being screened? The explosion doesn’t correlate to change in screening methodology. Yes, people who ignore the simple facts are parasites.…

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Re: U.S. cancer death rate has dropped by a third since 1991

#113

Post by tee_0 »

dekhn wrote: post #112
tee_0 wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don’t buy it. Cancer that is screened eventually will present. It doesn’t change the amount of cancer that presents. Again, this changes survival but not diagnoses. People who abstain from living in the modern way almost never get cancer or diabetes. Is this because they aren’t being screened? The explosion doesn’t correlate to change in screening methodology. Yes, people who ignore the simple facts are parasites.…

[flagged]

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Re: U.S. cancer death rate has dropped by a third since 1991

#115

Post by runnerup »

omniglottal wrote: post #59
kodah wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Prostate cancer is one that men should be especially familiar with. My dad was diagnosed years ago after his PCP ignored escalating PSA levels. Although he's a "survivor" of Stage 4 his life is a shell of what it was, and has expressed a number of times he wishes he was dead. When I spoke to the oncologist after his diagnosis I remember this adage specifically: "If you did an autopsy on every man that dies over 40, y…

Knowing something must be checked, while your primary refuses to check it, what is one's recourse in the US?

https://www.privatemdlabs.com/lab_tests.php?view=all

https://www.discountedlabs.com/choose-a-test

Or use your insurance's telemedicine portal to get a random doctor on the line and get them to order the tests.

For many people this will be out of reach but for those earning a comfortable salary, you can pay out of pocket for X-ray, CT, MRI, etc and they're "only" like $500-2,000.

Re: U.S. cancer death rate has dropped by a third since 1991

#116

Post by soramimo »

Gatsky wrote: post #74
grandiego wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Be your own advocate and research the things your doctor tells you I share your concern but I think there is no definitive advise about how to prevent these horrible outcomes (besides the usual "do regular exercise", "lower sugar consumption", "avoid stress", etc.) Did you find anything more concrete?

There are not really any lifestyle interventions with good quality evidence for preventing cancer. This is my list: Definitely worth doing: - Don't smoke anything that burns or chew tobacco. - Depending on your age and sexual experience, get the HPV vaccine. - Investigate your family history of cancer. If there are multiple people on one side of the family getting cancer (particularly breast + ovarian + pancreatic, o…

> Investigate your family history of cancer. If there are multiple people on one side of the family getting cancer (particularly breast + ovarian + pancreatic, or colon + gastric) then consider getting genetic testing/discuss with a doctor.

Can you elaborate on how you see this being actionable? Perhaps an increased cadence of screenings?

Re: U.S. cancer death rate has dropped by a third since 1991

#117

Post by JeanPierreK »

runnerup wrote: post #115
omniglottal wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Knowing something must be checked, while your primary refuses to check it, what is one's recourse in the US?

https://www.privatemdlabs.com/lab_tests.php?view=all https://www.discountedlabs.com/choose-a-test Or use your insurance's telemedicine portal to get a random doctor on the line and get them to order the tests. For many people this will be out of reach but for those earning a comfortable salary, you can pay out of pocket for X-ray, CT, MRI, etc and they're "only" like $500-2,000.

Thanks for the mention runnerup. Indeed we are the easiest place to get your levels checked in-depth, hassle free. I'm the ceo over at https://www.PrivateMdLabs.com, plz email me to j@privatemdlabs dot com so I can give you a token of appreciation and discount for your next tests.

Re: U.S. cancer death rate has dropped by a third since 1991

#118

Post by nerdponx »

Broken_Hippo wrote: post #71
nerdponx wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Isn't pancreatic cancer in particular usually very far advanced before it's detected?

Yes, unless you get lucky. They find spots on the pancreas by accident all the time. It is incredibly common. I know, I have one: I got an abdominal CT scan while getting something unrelated checked. Some of these go on to be cancer, and sometimes they know it is precancerous. The cyst I have wasn't immediately precancerous. Now I get regular MRIs to check on it. Since I have no symptoms, there is really nothing else…

If it's so deadly and widely asymptomatic until it's way too late, why don't we screen for it? Or is that problem, that we don't have a good screening test other than expensive and time consuming MRI?

Re: U.S. cancer death rate has dropped by a third since 1991

#119

Post by Gatsky »

soramimo wrote: post #116
Gatsky wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are not really any lifestyle interventions with good quality evidence for preventing cancer. This is my list: Definitely worth doing: - Don't smoke anything that burns or chew tobacco. - Depending on your age and sexual experience, get the HPV vaccine. - Investigate your family history of cancer. If there are multiple people on one side of the family getting cancer (particularly breast + ovarian + pancreatic, o…

> Investigate your family history of cancer. If there are multiple people on one side of the family getting cancer (particularly breast + ovarian + pancreatic, or colon + gastric) then consider getting genetic testing/discuss with a doctor. Can you elaborate on how you see this being actionable? Perhaps an increased cadence of screenings?

Yes, tailored screening is one aspect. Prophylactic surgery is another option. There are also pharmacological measures eg tamoxifen to reduce risk of breast cancer in BRCA1/2 carriers. Then there are clinical trials of preventative interventions eg denosumab in BRCA carriers.

Re: U.S. cancer death rate has dropped by a third since 1991

#120

Post by Broken_Hippo »

nerdponx wrote: post #118
Broken_Hippo wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, unless you get lucky. They find spots on the pancreas by accident all the time. It is incredibly common. I know, I have one: I got an abdominal CT scan while getting something unrelated checked. Some of these go on to be cancer, and sometimes they know it is precancerous. The cyst I have wasn't immediately precancerous. Now I get regular MRIs to check on it. Since I have no symptoms, there is really nothing else…

If it's so deadly and widely asymptomatic until it's way too late, why don't we screen for it? Or is that problem, that we don't have a good screening test other than expensive and time consuming MRI?

Screening isn't really helpful because it isn't good enough. We find all of these lesions, but the vast majority don't result in anything that needs treated nor do they appear to have symptoms. They are just there. So right now, we just watch them. I'm guessing if we knew how common they were, could better tell between normal and cancerous, or heck, even knew why they were so common, we could do better.

But we just aren't there yet.

And unfortunately, this is the case for a number or screenings - and is a downside of some routine screenings. I keep hoping that once we understand a variety of cancer better, this will improve.

FWIW, mine was found on a CT scan and all the monitoring was on an MRI - and both expensive (thankfully the out of pocket costs for healthcare here are low) and uncomfortable for some folks.

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