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.

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.

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?

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.

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!

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.

Once again you have given us a perspective on a topic that is surprising and thoughtful. You move us to action and inquiry, and give information that answers questions as if we were in a conversation rather than an audience. Keep doing what you’re doing. I even like how you handle ads and their relevance to your message about people, innovation, tech among a whole lot else.

Hi! Chronically ill person (without cancer) here. The paternalistic bias against telling people what's going on inside their bodies so as "not to scare" a patient is SO damaging, and leads to so many delayed diagnoses across illnesses, and I am SO glad you touched on that! Reframing the way the medical system thinks about prevention and/or early detection as a whole is so, so needed. Thank you for making this. 💜

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.

I can’t get that call from the dr ‘you have cancer’ because I don’t go to the dr:) 😂

Cleo, this video was outstanding. You covered this difficult topic of cancer and early detection beautifully. I am a doctor in private practice in Atlanta and I recommend the Ezra full body MRI scan to my patients. Thank you for providing such an incredible resource on such an important topic. I wish you continued success as you are very talented and your work makes a difference in the world.

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.

This is absolutely top quality content. Extremely professional, engaging, and informative. You are a true talent!

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.

I love that this is being talked about. I have worked on some cancer research projects and in the process became aware of many interesting companies working in the prevention area, especially early testing. Companies like “grail” are creating blood tests that can pick up signals of 50+ cancers including asymptomatic ones. Myriad genetics and many other genetic companies have genetic screenings to see if you have some of the more common cancer gene mutations or risks. (Aka tells you if you need to be more vigillent and screen more often due to being higher risk) right now these are mostly cash pay unless you have a strong family history, but it is something I am so passionate about and I hope becomes more accessable, affordable and covered. Also people, live healthy! Stop smoking (causes huge numbers of mutations) and your outcomes (even if you get cancer) are way better. Prevention and early detection👏