Well, my father died of pancreatic cancer three years ago. It was detected in the last stage due to very strange positioning. He only had a few months to live at that point.

I really wish we had better methods to detect that cancer. Maybe before it metastasised he could be saved?

Pancreatic cancer has very poor survival. 5-year survival for stage 0 to II (i.e. early detection) is 34%. Most pancreas tumors are KRAS mutants - undruggable and aggressive.

I think 2 of the, still, most deadly cancer kinds are still as lethal as always because there was no progress in early detection.

>It seems likely that, in the next 50 years, instead of actually curing cancer, we will just get really really good at early detection and prevention.

You got it _very_ right.

Many years ago on youtube I heard a non-main stream cancer doc who said that, the battle against cancer has been stagnant in 40 years ( so 50 years sounds about right). Main stream medicine does lot of massaging of numbers/statistics to give the impression that we are making progress on cancer. To add to the illusion that there is progress, early detection means a person diagnosed with cancer is likely to survive well past the 5 years mark. The 5 years mark is one of the parameters that is used to define the cancer 'cure rate'.

“Just”...

When early detection influences survival rates fairly consistently, it’s basically the same thing as curing. See also: vaccines.

Are we sure that early detection really improves survival times or does it just look like this in the statistics because we detect the cancers in an earlier stage?

According to Craig Venter, early detection is what we need to eliminate cancer: https://youtu.be/iUqgTYbkHP8?t=15m37s

This is a weird use of the standard trope about cancer survival rates improving being just a statistical artifact caused by early detection.

...because that (somewhat overdone) narrative already presupposes higher survival rates for cancers that are detected early.

It depends upon a fact about what we mean by survival rates.

In most cases survival is defined in terms of fraction of population who are alive after a set period of time from diagnosis.

Suppose Bob is going to die of Foozle cancer in 2025. If I diagnose Bob in 2019 he gets more than five years survival. If my diagnosis method only catches it in 2023 the survival rate looks much worse. But all that changed is when I told Bob he's going to die.

In contrast if I develop a treatment for Foozle cancer, maybe Bob doesn't die until 2030. He's survived more than five years after diagnosis again - but this time it's because I was able to actually help.

You're forgetting a much simpler scenario that could wildly throw off survival statistics: early detected cancer might have a chance of never actually killing the patient even without treatment. Therefore early detection increases survivability in the statistics because it's counting more "duds".

Doesn't help the poor f@cker who already has colon cancer, though.

Neither do vaccines. They still managed to basically eradicate extremely dangerous afflictions.

Or in an extreme scenario, have certain organs be removed that have the deadliest forms of cancer. ie. Pancreas and gallbladder. Humans can live without either.

I'm not suggesting it's a good option though.