2.5 million people with cancer in UK

[horizon]

As I understood it, the battle against cancer was being won. 1000 people added to this total every day.

[al_yrpal]

The longer you live the greater the chance of getting it, and our life spans are increasing. 200 years ago most wouldnt have ever reached the age where the risk increased markedly. Cancer occurs when cells attack themselves, obesity is a big causative enemy and back then people were more active too.

Al

[PH]

As I understood it, the battle against cancer was being won.

Which battle? There's so many.
Survival rates have doubled since the 70s,
Survival for 10+ years for the easily diagnosed cancers as approaching 80%
Prostate cancer survival is nearly 90%

Plenty of battles being won every day, both by the professionals and the personal battles of those going through it.
Plenty more to be fought and good luck to them all. The early and accurate diagnosis is one of the biggest ones, the survival rate for those hard to diagnose is 20%.

It is a huge number of people affected, but it isn't all bad news.

[horizon]

Thanks for the replies. Watching the documentary, one felt that we should understand that it is a huge crisis and that something alarming and out of control is occurring.

PH: I have heard the same things that you write about - the documentary appeared to be contradicting all that - hence my own comment - as I understood it (i.e. as you do).

Al_yrpal: the BBC didn't AFAICS make that distinction (that of a longer-living population) - it was case of young and old (unless I've misunderstood it).

This is the link BTW and the alarmism starts right from the beginning:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b0 ... -episode-1

[al_yrpal]

Longer living… thats my take on it, not the Beeb. Years ago people never survived to late middle age when it seems to strike increasing numbers. I remember our long lived Gerbil Cyril, it got him in the end..

Al

[PH]

PH: I have heard the same things that you write about - the documentary appeared to be contradicting all that - hence my own comment - as I understood it (i.e. as you do).

You hadn't referenced any BBC program so it's hard to counteract whatever it is you're referring to.
The figure I used come from Google and all what look like reliable sources, but I don't need google to know that people around me are surviving cancers that would have been a death sentence not so long ago.

[Tangled Metal]

Early diagnosis? Yes agree with that, very important. Just tell the doctors that!

Two in my family who died with cancer, one was doctor averse so her problem when she got checked up too late. The other got sent away without any information about signs to look for with skin cancer. When he went back again the gp realised he'd cocked up but it had spread so was terminal.

The main cancer in our family is bowel cancer. One specialist (a prof teaching oncology and a friend of a member of our family) said we should all be tested for the gene marker and if we have it to have regular tests. NHS gastro-enterolgist told our gp they only test people over 50. Not true. On a needs basis they test younger. This expert family friend said we should be tested from about 40.

So for the cost of a £10-30 test annually through the NHS (costs a lot more privately with the consults) We're at increased risk. NHS is rigid in its thinking at times. There is a lot of policies and protocols to obey and at times common sense needs based approach is out the window. BTW my cousins are well paid with excellent private healthcare. They've had the tests. I'm not so haven't. That's ok but you just check for symptoms right? OK but what if they're masked by pre-existing conditions like IBS?

Sorry about the rant. It's just that there's the public response to cancer about publicising early diagnosis. Then there's the reality where they go against their own advice. In some ways there is a big issue with the NHS, that's where money means the gp is the main gatekeeper whose main role is to save money by referring as few people as possible without legal problems to the next level in healthcare.

[Vorpal]

Sorry about the rant. It's just that there's the public response to cancer about publicising early diagnosis. Then there's the reality where they go against their own advice. In some ways there is a big issue with the NHS, that's where money means the gp is the main gatekeeper whose main role is to save money by referring as few people as possible without legal problems to the next level in healthcare.

I'm not convinced that is true. Health care will be less expensive overall if serious illnesses are caught early on. GPs have the authority to refer people outside of policy when justified, for example by family history such as yours.

Older GPs are much less likely to do this, and I had the experience of seeing my GP several times and having him tell me that policy for a referral to physio didn't include me because my condition didn't meet guidelines for severity (i.e. my quality of life wasn't compromised). However when he retired, the new GP referred me the first time I saw her. She said that it was likely to get worse if not treated, and could lead to expensive surgery. I was curious about this turn-around and asked if there had been a change in policy, and she said no, but that probably their training had differed somewhat due to age. She did not go into detail, but my experience with her was that she was rather more inclined to take this kind of preventive approach to medicine than her predecessor.

[531colin]

Family member got support (genetic counselling, colonoscopy) due to a brother having (early onset) colo-rectal cancer. So I guess its NHS policy to test family members, in certain circumstances......I don't know what those circumstances are, but it shouldn't be impossible to find out.
It says here http://www.cdc.gov/features/lynchsyndrome/ that colonoscopy is the diagnostic tool used, so I think it'll be a bit more than £30 a go.
I'm of the age where I get sent a test kit for faecal occult blood (poo sticks!) every year or whatever the interval is.

[hondated]

Family member got support (genetic counselling, colonoscopy) due to a brother having (early onset) colo-rectal cancer. So I guess its NHS policy to test family members, in certain circumstances......I don't know what those circumstances are, but it shouldn't be impossible to find out.
It says here http://www.cdc.gov/features/lynchsyndrome/ that colonoscopy is the diagnostic tool used, so I think it'll be a bit more than £30 a go.
I'm of the age where I get sent a test kit for faecal occult blood (poo sticks!) every year or whatever the interval is.

Colin yes I get those sticks as well and I have normally received them by this time of year so I wonder if this is another one of the cuts !

[horizon]

This is from today's Guardian and seems to back up the BBC's version of events:

If you were born after 1960, the odds that you will get cancer in your lifetime are now one in two. It is an extraordinary statistic. Even if you turn out to be one of the lucky ones, half of the people around your kitchen table this morning will at some point sit in a doctor’s surgery and be given the news that they have cancer. If the numbers continue in the same relentless direction, before long, it will be most of them.

http://www.theguardian.com/society/2016 ... -treatment

[531colin]

Cancer is (largely) a disease of old age. More people survive into old age, more get cancer....is this surprising?
More get dementia, too.
Maybe the people now getting skin cancer are the first generation who expected to go on foreign holidays, before sunscreen was fashionable.

[reohn2]

I've lost four close family members to cancer,two sisters,and a BinL to lung cancer,and one BinL with a brain tumour,it ain't pretty.
One survivor,Mrs R2(Thyroid cancer),she's never been her self since.
All this in the last 10years,and I ask myself at times "when is it my turn".
I have three daughters,eight grandchildren ranging from 5 to 23 years old and one,1 year old great grandson,all healthy but I do worry about the law of averages.
What also concerns me is what causes so much of it?

[horizon]

It's quite hard getting a sense of what is what: is it really a huge and growing problem or (as the cancer charities sometimes claim) OK with lots of cures in the pipeline?

[531colin]

It's quite hard getting a sense of what is what: is it really a huge and growing problem or (as the cancer charities sometimes claim) OK with lots of cures in the pipeline?

Its both.
As survival rates improve for all the things that used to kill us off as youngsters, the number of people reaching an age where cancer normally strikes is increasing. To flag that up as a "problem" is misleading and scaremongering. It actually reflects success in improving the survival rates of other illnesses. When TB, bronchitis, influenza, diphtheria and stuff like that was the major cause of death, heart attacks and strokes weren't a problem, because you were lucky if you lived long enough to get them.
Now that TB, chronic bronchitis and all the boys in the band are largely in the past, and the survival rates of things like high blood pressure, stroke and heart attack are increasing, more people survive to the "cancer age".....is that your idea of "bad news" ?.....as somebody approaching the "cancer age" I think its good news.
Even better news is that the survival rates of many cancers are also steadily improving.....some cancers that used to be fatal in short order now have five or even ten year survival as a possibility.