Revolutionary new blood test 'could detect ALL types of cancer

This is absolutely fantastic! Just think how many lives this test could save.

Is hoped breakthrough could prevent unnecessary invasive procedures
Test focuses on damage to the DNA of white blood cells
'There is a clear distinction between the damage to the white blood cells from patients with cancer and those without,' say the researchers
Test has so far accurately diagnosed lung, skin and colon cancer


www.dailymail.co.uk...

a reply to: nighthawk1954

I'm gonna be "That Guy" and point out that, yes, It would be a wonderful world if we could detect and cure cancer (which we have the ability to - for a very long time), but this will NEVER get legs BECAUSE the TPTB are A-Holes and Anyone Less than them (( US ) funny, double acronym) will not be able to afford it.

It is better for "There" interest to "cure" a patient for years and bill them every step of the way, than to give them a quick fix.

Honestly, the whole world if F-ed up (Ha, another double acronym, not even trying here.lol)

Good Post, Wishful Prospects

Your going to get colon cancer sir. We need to put you on a very expensive preventative regiment.

That's how this will turn out I'm affraid.

a reply to: SirKonstantin

While I agree with you doctors and modern medicine will become obsolete in my lifetime. Computers and robots will take over everything from diagnosing to treating to surgery. It's already happening. The automatation of an entire industry like medicine will crush the medical industry as far as jobs etc. just wait its coming.

a reply to: GreenMtnBoys

Oh yeah, Deff. But not until the great purge occurs....2015 *cough cough*. Easier to control the masses when there not so massive. lol

originally posted by: SirKonstantin
a reply to: nighthawk1954

I'm gonna be "That Guy" and point out that, yes, It would be a wonderful world if we could detect and cure cancer (which we have the ability to - for a very long time), but this will NEVER get legs BECAUSE the TPTB are A-Holes and Anyone Less than them (( US ) funny, double acronym) will not be able to afford it.

It is better for "There" interest to "cure" a patient for years and bill them every step of the way, than to give them a quick fix.

Honestly, the whole world if F-ed up (Ha, another double acronym, not even trying here.lol)

Good Post, Wishful Prospects

Steve Jobs was, to colloquially put it, a treble squillionnaire.
What did he die of again?
Oh yes, that's right, pancreatic cancer.
So if HE can't afford this mythical cure, just who can?

If someone came up with a bona fide cure for cancer (well, an individual cancer at least, as what the conspiracy theorists tend to believe is that cancer is one disease and can therefore all cancers can be cured by one treatment-derp) how much would they be able to sell that for?
How much would they be able to sell the licencing for?
They could literally name their price.
Overnight, the person or company who owned that cure would become the richest and most powerful people in the world of pharma and medicine as a whole.

Curing cancer won't rid the world of cancer as people will still develop it so the "customer base" will still be there ergo they will still make a lot of money.
Who needs to make money from treatments when you can make a hell of a lot more from a cure?
Even if the world's population suddenly decided to live as healthily as possible there would still be cancer as there are lots of other ways cancer can develop irrespective of lifestyle.

What's important about this finding is that the earlier cancer is found, the more successful the treatment will be.
Cancer death rates have plummeted in the past 20 years and primarily that's been through better diagnostic techniques and earlier discovery.
More specific and precise treatments & therapies have certainly played their parts too.

50 years ago if a kid was diagnosed with leukaemia it was a death sentence.
Today, greater than 90% of them live long and productive lives.
Every ten years the survival rates for ALL cancers have been increasing.
www.cancerresearchuk.org...


Colon cancer and skin cancer can be effectively cured if found early enough.
Lung cancer can be successfully treated if found early enough. The reason lung cancer tends to kill so many people is that the symptoms don't present themselves until the cancer has established itself by which time the only viable options are quite invasive and/or drastic.

So, for the poster above who wrote
" Your going to get colon cancer sir. We need to put you on a very expensive preventative regiment.

That's how this will turn out I'm affraid. (sic) "

Would you rather NOT have any treatment which could potentially prevent you from developing the cancer?

Talk to people who are on treatment for cancer and ask them whether they would have liked to have been diagnosed earlier.
See what their answer is.
I will bet anything you want that every single one of them will say Yes.


To the poster who thinks that robots and automation will take over medicine during his lifetime, I'm afraid they won't.
As someone who works in that field I personally can't see that EVER happening.
They are extremely useful to say the least and have made diagnosing and treatment easier but they still need to be controlled by someone who knows what they're doing.
And they break!
There's also the small issue of accountability...in this extremely litigious age we live in, if there were no doctors who would take legal responsibility if a robot got something wrong? The companies probably wouldn't (unless it was a manufacturing issue) as if they were getting sued left, right and centre they wouldn't bother making the robots any more.
Think about it.