What We Get Wrong About Cancer

I'm not usually one for over sharing but I've just finished my first week of chemotherapy and I won't lie I'm scared of how it's affecting me, but your enthusiasm for the topic helped put my mind at ease. So thank you, you have no idea how much I needed this today

I got a full medical in Tokyo, Japan just because it was cheap, it was around $200. This medical included an ultrasound. They discovered a 7cm tumor on my left kidney. I hand absolutely ZERO symptoms, no pain, no blood in my urine, and normal blood work. Long story short, I hurried back to the US and had a radical nephrectomy (kidney removed). After pathology reports came back, it turns out it was stage 3 cancer. I will start immunotherapy in a few weeks. Apparently this was growing fast. And I think about why I got the test done in Tokyo - because it was "cheap". I am fortunate, and I wish this type of tests were accessible to everyone.

Wow, 5 years ago I had colorectal cancer at age 60, later found out it was stage 3c, several trips to the bathroom gave me the warnings and it was confirmed a few weeks later after the colonoscopy. I still have the endoscope pic, it was a monster. A few months later I had the radiation, surgery and chemo over the entire year and as of today I appear to be free after another cat scan. I'm eternally grateful to possibly hundreds of care givers and my team of surgeons, oncology and chemo people. I do have some post issues with the surgery and chemo, but that's a small price to pay for being alive. I likely would have died in 2019 had I not had treatment.

I also had no risk factors until I had tremendous back pain. It turns out I have metastatic cancer that started in my lung (I’m a nonsmoker) and spread to my axial-skeletal system. I’m 43 and have stage 4 cancer. This video is very impactful.

I am a stage 4 throat cancer survivor. I was diagnosed in September 2009. I've had numerous MRIs, CAT scans and PET scans. My treatment included 3 of the 4 types: poison, burn and melt. It was intense torture for 3 months but I was finally declared cancer free after a year. There were times during the treatment I wished I died from the cancer; it would have been less painful. But here I am even though my survival is considered rare. Why am I telling you this? I recently became a subscriber of your videos because they are thorough and thoughtful. I had no idea you would touch on the subject of cancer. I would like to contribute some perspective from someone who has "been there". Your video mentions how you found out you don't have cancer and you seemed relieved. When I found out I had cancer my first reaction was, "what do we do now?". I had no idea how much the treatment would change my life. The treatment left me with the inability to swallow. I cannot eat food or drink fluids. I can speak but with much difficulty. 13 years into my recovery and my life is no longer the same. So what? Why cry in your comments section? I wanted to add my experience to this topic. Current treatment for cancer has short and long term effects that are often downplayed and people are not aware. And to your point, my life might not be extended by a significant amount. But it is nothing like it was before cancer. I struggle with my post treatment conditions. But what my cancer diagnosis and treatment also gave me was a new way to find happiness. When I was faced with the real probability of dying I saw the opportunity to find a good new life. I wanted to say that surviving cancer, more than anything, changes your perspective and life. It changes the things you do everyday and the way you approach them. So, is there a cure for cancer? For me, the cure was letting go of the horror of the treatment and accepting the changes it gave me with gratitude.

My friends dad was saved by early detection of his cancer, ironically from scans to make sure he was not injured from his motorcycle accident. Its also notable that he had pancreatic cancer, which unless caught basically instantly, its fatal, check the chart she shows, its nuts. So getting in that motorcycle accident saved his life.

8:33 I had to stage 1A ovarian cancer and my survival rate was about 92% the only reason my cancer was caught so early is because I am a minor. I was 15 and doctors estimated that my tumour had started growing at the end of February, which makes a lot of sense that’s when my biggest symptoms started. I started chemo on 2 May I found out I had cancer about a month and a half after the tumour started developing. I’ve heard stories about women not finding out they had ovarian cancer until five years after the tour started developing my tumour was the size of a large watermelon and weighed 3.4 pounds when it came out of my body that was after doing chemo. I probably would have been dead by then. I’m 16 now and I am officially one year into remission.

I was with my mom when she got the call from her doctor. That moment was awful. Miraculously they caught it early, removed the tumor, and did a few months of radiation. She just got her 5 year scan and it was clean! Sometimes I forget she’s a cancer survivor. But then I remember and I get so anxious about the odds of it coming back. It seems like all the moms of the kids I grew up with have had breast cancers at some point, and it doesn’t get any easier. Every year we’re making casseroles for someone else, you know?

It's been 8 months now that I was diagnosed with stage 4 cancer. I was cured with chemotherapy just a month ago. This video made me appreciate all the efforts humanity has made that helped me cure it. Thank you for making this video and spreading the much needed awareness about the topic.

Great video, Cleo. Early detection is absolutely the way to go. I recently found out I have 8 cancerous tumors in my spine, which likely started growing more than a decade ago. I sure wish we caught it earlier. One problem with early detection though is misdiagnosis. I got an MRI and doctors thought I had a cyst. We wasted 18 months trying to treat a cyst that wasn’t there and allowed the tumors to grow larger.

Thank you for this. I was diagnosed with squamus cell carcinoma (throat cancer) because I felt a lump in my throat. If we had MRI as part of our annual physicals it would have been found 6 months earlier. I almost died because we found it so late.

My mom was diagnosed with Thyroid Cancer last year and she was recently cleared as Cancer free and I’m so happy that there are so many new treatments.

Someone else may have mentioned this but there is a fundamental problem that has to be addressed when considering early detection: Bayes' theorem. I'm surprised it didn't get mentioned, as it is central to understanding what medical test results mean. I learned about it from one of the best lectures I had in medical school. Basically, the prior probability of a patient having the condition being tested for has a profound effect on the positive predictive value of a test. We all have an inherent understanding of this idea, as the person giving the lecture illustrated (with an scenario that bears little resemblance to patients and no resemblance to how actual patent care is or was practiced, so please do not take it as such). There is a patient speaking a language we didn't know and we were having trouble getting a translator for. We were able to get the idea that she thought she had syphilis. So we ran a VDRL test, which is an indirect test for syphilis that can be positive for other reasons. It was positive, and the lecturer asked do we treat? Some yes, some no. He continued the scenario: a very confident med student who has been learning the language needed shows up and interviews the patient. They come back and say that the patient works as a prostitute and has unprotected sex with several men a day. Now everyone says treat. But before we discharge the patient, the official translator shows up and just shakes their head at the med student. You see, she's not a sex worker, she's studying to be a nun at the convent in town, has never had any sexual contact with anyone, but had a sexual dream she thinks gave her syphilis. Now do we treat? Everyone says no. Same test, three different prior probabilities of having the condition, 3 wildly different conclusions. This concept is critical for early detection, because we are often in a situation similar to the positive VDRL with no data on patient history. But we want to be more like one of the situations with more data. Preferably the one with correct information! Successful early detection programs depend on addressing Bayes' theorum.. When prior probability of the condition being present is low, even a very sensitive and specific test given to a random population, most positive test results will be false positives (a type one error in the lingo, think telling 65yr old man he's pregnant). Running the numbers with Bayes' theorem can tell you how many of them. I ran the numbers on a very accurate drug screen (99% sensitive, 99% specific) and based prior probability of a random person being a cocaine user, found that there were 9 false positives for every true one.This is the bane of all screening tests. When the follow up is easy, cheap, with little or no risk that is not a big problem. When the follow is is expensive, invasive, and carries a non-negligible risk of 'therapeutic misadventures' (i.e. harmful follow-ups which are only harmful followups when something goes wrong) it is a big problem. With cancer, the problem is that by the time a tumor has grown to a 1cm^3 pea size and easy to see on scans, it has gone through 90% of it's life-span. So we really need to detect it before this time. Often our followup involves biopsy or similar sample acquisition that is low but not no risk, and is aimed at a small target we may not hit (thus risking a type II error, think telling woman in labor, she's not pregnant). So we have to get the risk of type I errors down before follow up and risk of type II errors down on follow up down. And we have to do it while also avoiding risky or invasive ways of doing iyt. As alludde to, but not quite said, current methods of screening identify a lot of stuff that looks like cancer but isn't. Simply seeing a nodule of 1cm^3 is pretty common on a full body MRI. Almost all of these are not cancer. To be blunt, it is not a matter of using what we have now more often We need to apply more of what we have learned about cancer biology and oncogenesis to create tests that are not 99% sensitive and 99% specific, but 99.99% and beyond. And ways to turn MRIs looking for masses, into MRI's or other scanning technologies detecting the molecular markers of cancer even when there is no detectable mass yet. Along with this we also need, at least on followup, to detect markers for the potential for metastatic spread. This helps to ID those cancers that are or are not likely to progress. That's hard, but it also means that the quest for more effective early detection looks a lot more like cancer treatment in terms of the glory to be obtained and knowledge base needed than it appears at first.Thjis helps create motivation to create such tests, but it also means more money and costs. And is another hornet nest of issues. Edited to reduce blocks of text and other readability issues.

Two years ago, my mother - aged 64 at the time - went to her annual breast exam. As her mother had to undergo a full mastectomy around the same age, she always dreaded the day a doctor would give her a terrible diagnosis. She came out of the radiography room to listen to the results and she felt something was wrong as the doc had a slight concerned look on his face. "There is a liiiittle spot, but I wouldn't worry about it. We should just monitor the evolution as you come by next year. 🤗". She was not at all reassured and asked for another appointment with the chief of oncology of the hospital and more exams. Thank god she did, because by the time she got that other appointment, a little over a month after, the 'little spot' became a small lump. The oncologist booked an appointment for a sample to get surgically taken in order to determine what type of cancerous cell these were. Jump to two months later and she was in the O.R. having a raisin sized tumor removed. She walked out with her two breast almost entirely intacts, nothing more than this lump had to be cut out thanks to her and the oncologist quick response to the initial warnings. Had she gone home trying to forget about that dreadful 'little spot', trusting the first doc in denial, she probably would have suffered the same fate as her mother and she would have been traumatised in a way no woman ever should. Take care of yourselves and if you have good reasons to suspect something might be wrong, make sure you can rest on both ears. Otherwise, give it all you got, beat this fucker before it has the time to call your body its home.

I got incredibly lucky that my mum and her astounding intuition decided to keep pushing for me to get a blood test after being refused several times. Turned out that i had leukemia. Emphasis on 'had', because I have since been cured of it and made a full recovery. Just a few more weeks and i would have been dead. PLEASE get tested if you feel it would be appropriate to do so

Just found your channel and LOVE all your stuff. As a stage 4 colon cancer survivor (5 years and still fighting - surgery, 3 types of chemo + immunotherapy), and having MRIs every few months over that time, I wasn't aware of how they actually worked. Amazing stuff -- thank you!!!

I heard, our body is fighting cancer every day. And normally our immune system does a good job. It’s when these cancer cells slip through our defenses, that we notice it.

I'm a cancer biologist and have have studied/researched & worked in the field for just over 5 years now, love this peice of content, and the effort you've put in is really great!

Cloe, you are correct. Information should be shared and people should have access to their medical information. You create great material. I will keep watching. I even showed your sports and camera video to my class of students. Keep up the great work!

My mom is going to start chemo today for a rare blood cancer and I really appreciate how informative this was for me to help her and understand what she's going through :))