Early
Page 5
Early
diagnosis is the key to better , more affordable cancer care
Cancer continues to have a large burden on economies across the world with 1 in 2 people born after 1960 in the UK predicted to develop cancer in their lifetime . There are numerous benefits for patients that have their cancer diagnosed at an early stage . Primarily , there is a mortality benefit – stage 1 breast cancer has a 5-year survival rate of 98 % compared to 26 % for stage 4 patients ( Figure 3 ). This is a common trend across most cancers ( Figure 3 ). While progress in the development of less invasive liquid biopsies promise faster and more convenient means of screening and early diagnosis , it is imperative that early diagnostics regimens not only detect disease , but also deliver precision as to the nature of the disease and potentially provide information to guide best treatment . Current early diagnoses often do not discriminate between aggressive cancers demanding immediate intervention and indolent ones that may only require regular monitoring . The resulting over-diagnosis results in substantial number of patients receiving potential harmful interventions which are not needed . To achieve this level of precision , we believe effective early screening will require multimodal testing , which not only detects the presence of cancer , but also provides prognostic and drug response information . In our view , the high burden of test validation and a trend towards multi-modal testing will continue to present a significant hurdle to entrants developing individual tests with diagnostics remaining largely dominated by large incumbent diagnostic companies and / or service providers or companies able to leverage an existing well developed installed base .
Figure 3 : 5-year survival rates for the 5 most common cancers from stage 1 - 4 at diagnosis .
Source : goetzpartners Research , Cancer Research UK
Cancer is far easier to treat at early stages and early diagnosis saves lives
Early diagnosis rates can still improve The proportion of cancers being diagnosed at stages 1 and 2 is still relatively low for certain cancers as shown in ( Figure 4 ). Some cancers are easy to diagnose earlier , partly due to educational campaigns and screening programs and partly due to how obvious symptoms are . Pancreatic cancer has a very high mortality , but due to the lack of symptoms at a localised stage , it is often diagnosed too late , with an average life expectancy after diagnosis of 6 months . The proportion of stage 1 and 2 diagnoses likely lowered during the COVID-19 pandemic with fewer people attending screening appointments and more hesitant to see a doctor . Diagnostic tests should be non-invasive to increase uptake , especially in a time rife with medical misinformation . A risk of increasing diagnosis rates is overdiagnosis , imaging systems can diagnose cancers , but cannot prognosticate lesions found and can result in unnecessary harsh treatments .
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