Except that early stage intervention tends to mean that less invasive techniques can be used. Removing a small cancerous lump might only require keyhole surgery, while in later stages it might require significantly more invasive surgery. Sure, all surgery carries some risk (much of which, I believe, comes from having to use anesthetics rather than the surgery per-se) but the less invasive it is, the faster the patient can recover from it. Similarly, early stage cancers might call for far less agressive chemotherapy drugs with reduced side-effects and requiring fewer doses.

Still, the question of early detection is an interesting one, as is the question of when intervention is necessary. Your comments about the stress of knowing that you might have cancer is interesting in light of a paper which my father published a few years ago about whether to restart treatment with people who had relapsed ovarian cancer when their tumour marker levels started rising again, or when they started to exhibit symptoms. As it turned out, while treating people once their tumour markers crossed a 'red line' meant that intervention started earlier, waiting for symptoms to be exhibited resulted in nearly identical life expectancy and also a higher quality of life as they'd spent less time on chemo. Consequently, it also raised the question of whether or not it's worth regularly checking tumour marker levels after their first cancer had gone into remission, as having to have blood tests every three months and waiting for results each time is stressful in itself.

> Surgery, radiation therapy and chemo-therapy are very invasive techniques

A not so well-known fact to drive that home: cytostatics (the bulk of traditional chemotherapy) are derivatives of some of the nastiest chemical weapons developed in WWI, specifically mustard gas.

More than that, Mustard Gas was fairly important in the development of chemotherapy after US Army Doctors noticed it's effect on white blood cells following an air raid in WW2 when a ship carrying Mustard Gas was bombed. From there, in part, was sparked the idea of using similar drugs to attack cancers.

http://www.the-hospitalist.org/details/article/243771/From_W... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sulfur_mustard#Development_of_t...

Indeed, it's worth reading some of the stuff people like Otis Webb Brawley have written on the subject. Early screening for prostate cancer has indeed reduced the deaths attributed to that disease — because the resulting treatments are killing patients before the cancer could. It's not always as simple as it seems.

I have lived with canner in two loved ones very close to me. My wife and my Dad. My wifes TNBC was caught early and and the treatment was horrific but she has survived. I wasn't so lucky with my Dad as he came out of the gate with prostate cancer, stage IV, earlier detection in his case would have given me the time for fishing and the other things we'd put off for his retirement.