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Comment by gumby | Hacker News Reader

> we're getting a lot better at treating cancer,

Is this really true? I know we are getting better in diagnosing cancers, so the time from initial diagnosis to death is longer, but it's not clear that overall lifespan of people with all cancers is any longer. If anything, because treatment starts sooner, quality of life may have diminshed.

It is definitely true that treatments for some cancers have improved over the last couple of decades. I find the immunotherapies particularly exciting and seemingly promising.

But in the broader cases I am not sure I could agree with your statement.

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Yes, having just gone through this i was surprised to find that cancer of almost all kinds is rapidly becoming more manageable. Prognosis is quite good for most people and most cancers when caught early enough.

It is still an artform though and procedures that lead to a long healthy life in a majority of patients still cause deaths in some others.

Progress in treatment isn't uniform across all cancers, but yes we are getting a lot better at it.

Hope you are doing well, and wishing you the very best.

Your comment answers itself. There is no such thing as "cancer, singular". It's a catch-all term for a wide range of conditions relating to uncontrolled tissue growth.

We have gotten a lot better at treating cancer, in general, literally because we've gotten a lot better at treating specific types of cancer. There are no "broader cases", only cases of specific cancers which we've either gotten really good at treating, or which we haven't gotten really good at treating yet.

It is a really fair question, and I do not think it is totally clear cut. There are some cancers which are significantly more treatable than previously, but the numbers are also getting juiced from other directions.

We are detecting cancers earlier than before. Which can mean that, without any change in treatment efficacy, people are "surviving longer" with the disease. Another biggie is that people are smoking significantly less than 20+ years ago (both smokers and secondary exposure). While we are continually finding new ways to slowly poison ourselves (eg PFAS), we have also reduced exposure to other environmental toxins: lead paint/gas, DDT, etc,

Early detection when treatment is easier is better treatment.

They asked “are we decreasing the slope of this graph” and you replied by pointing to the graph and saying “if you choose a lower value of x, you get a lower value of y”.

That’s good news, but that’s not what they asked.

But early treatment does lead to better longterm outcomes for a whole bunch of cancers, so I take issue with your facile reply.

A mole removal with local anesthetic by your local dermatologist will almost always lead to better outcomes than two rounds of surgery, chemo, and radiation to treat stage 4 metastatic melanoma.

Yes, of course! As I said, that’s good news.

Remission rates are higher the earlier you catch it

It is true. Stage 3 used to be a death sentence in early 1990s. It is survivable now for most kinds of cancer.

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