Is early-onset cancer an emerging global epidemic? (2022)

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41571-022-00672-8

by divbzero • 2 years ago

22 12 2 years ago

strogonoff4• 2 years ago

I recall reading at some point that at any given time a person can have multiple mini-cancers coming and going, not resulting in anything.

Could the early-onset cancer epidemic be an effect of detecting cancers earlier, and/or the consequences of the resulting stress (higher levels of inflammation, etc.)?

A kind of “if you’re measuring it, you’re altering it”. Perhaps as we lower detection thresholds we should take care of handling measuring outcomes more carefully.

Zenzero2• 2 years ago

To some degree you are correct, but you are conflating processes that occur at different scales.

And important part of a functional immune system is checkpointing and surveillance of cells. Cells with errors in transcription in theory are flagged for destruction. Cell surface signaling is another way that the immune system jumps in to attack abnormal cells. This process is happening continuously, so in a technical sense if you wish to define cancer at the level of a single cell with proliferative potential, then sure, cancer is popping up all the time. As a result it is also why immunosuppressives carry warnings about increased risk of cancer, because they are downregulating a critical safeguard.

Cancer detection is still predominantly at the level of macroscopic disease, at which point it has far surpassed the point of failure on a cellular level. While a rise in cancer diagnoses are to be expected with improved screening, a hypothetical situation where cancers are coming and going does not occur at a clinically detectable level.

strogonoff4• 2 years ago

I appreciate the insight.

That said, you seem to imply that detected cancer does not resolve without modern medicinal treatment? Small sample, but I personally know one case where it did.

Also, do you believe that ongoing stress (after receiving what is widely considered a death sentence or one way road to constant treatment) has no influence the outcome?

Is early-onset cancer an emerging global epidemic? (2022)

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