Cancer mortality vs survival rates

Overdiagnosis of cancer greatly impacts the survival rates. Overdiagnosis occurs when people are told they need treatment for a cancer which will never progress or isn't even cancer (but we really hope that it really is cancer). If your cancer is never going to kill you, you don't need the treatment. And the treatment can cause you harm.

"Overdiagnosis can have a powerful effect on survival rates, even if no one has their life prolonged.
To understand why, imagine a country in which 1,000 people are found to have Cancer X because of symptoms (they all have progressive cancer). Five years after diagnosis, 500 are alive — producing a five-year survival rate of 500/1000 or 50 percent — and 500 have died.

Now imagine the same country with lots of cancer screening and/or incidental cancer detection.  Perhaps 2,000 would be given a diagnosis of Cancer X, although 1,000 would actually have indolent forms and not be destined to die from their cancer.  Five-year survival will increase dramatically, to 75 percent, because the 1,000 people with indolent cancer appear in both parts of the fraction: 1,500/2,000.  But what has changed?  Some people have been unnecessarily told they have cancer (and may have experienced the harms of therapy), and the same number of people (500) still died from Cancer X."

Got it? Good. And this over diagnosis costs billions. And the stress is horrible on the people. And unnecessary cancer treatment, which is pretty harsh, can cause people long term health concerns.

So when people run around saying "all these advances from research your donations helped fund have helped reduce the survival rates from this cancer", don't accept them at face value. Real research is needed to help prevent overdiagnosis and mortality rates are what need the real review.

Rememberance

Pinktober is (finally) winding down. I survived and did not buy anything pink but I did get Halloween candy (which is hidden to ensure its survival until Sunday). But there is something more we can do in October. If you haven't, I suggest you donate to breast cancer research, not awareness. Don't buy something pink with a portion going to breast cancer research but send something directly to the Breast Cancer Research Foundation (www.bcrf.org) or go to breast-cancer-research.com and find another research based charity to donate.

In addition, this was sent to me by a friend who got it from a friend who got it off a message board somewhere. Make Sunday October 31, your day of remembrance as well.

Breast Cancer Awareness Month is winding down. I'm relieved it's over with and glad that I succeeded in some small way of creating more awareness for metastatic breast cancer. I will start earlier next year and build on what I've learned.

But I've also decided to create my own holiday: Breast Cancer Remembrance Day. On Oct, 31, the final day of Breast Cancer Awareness Month, I will remember the friends and family I have lost to this disease. It's Sunday, so I will light a candle for them and say some prayers.

I will wear black, not for its funeral implications but for its simple dignity, a quality that has been sadly lacking these past 30 pink saturated days.

At 8:45 that night I will go outside with a flashlight. I'll think of the one in 8 U.S. women who will get breast cancer and the 45,000 who will die this year.

My eighth grade science teacher told us if you turned on a flashlight and pointed it toward the sky the photons leave the flashlight and they immediately start to spread out. Provided that they don't hit anything, each individual photon travels through space forever.

Time slows down as you approach the speed of light.

I'll think of those whose time was all too brief and I'll hope for brighter days ahead.