Dr. Suzanne O'Sullivan

If you look at people who have been diagnosed with early cancers on screening, you will see fewer deaths from cancers in those groups. But if you look at the overall mortality from cancer, we have a gradually increasing amount of cancer diagnosis with late stage cancer also.

And the reason that happens is because if you diagnose lots of people with early cancer cells, what people don't realise is that not every abnormal cell that looks cancerous will actually grow and cause long term health problems. Only certain cancer cells grow to become malignant, life threatening cancers. If you catch lots and lots of early cancer cells and treat them all as if they are

And the reason that happens is because if you diagnose lots of people with early cancer cells, what people don't realise is that not every abnormal cell that looks cancerous will actually grow and cause long term health problems. Only certain cancer cells grow to become malignant, life threatening cancers. If you catch lots and lots of early cancer cells and treat them all as if they are

And the reason that happens is because if you diagnose lots of people with early cancer cells, what people don't realise is that not every abnormal cell that looks cancerous will actually grow and cause long term health problems. Only certain cancer cells grow to become malignant, life threatening cancers. If you catch lots and lots of early cancer cells and treat them all as if they are

potentially going to be life threatening in the future, you'll be treating a lot of those people unnecessarily. But if you look at the survival rates for cancer in those people, they'll look fantastic because a lot of those people didn't need to be treated in the long run. They'll be very healthy. They'll attribute that to the cancer treatment, not knowing that the treatment was never necessary.

potentially going to be life threatening in the future, you'll be treating a lot of those people unnecessarily. But if you look at the survival rates for cancer in those people, they'll look fantastic because a lot of those people didn't need to be treated in the long run. They'll be very healthy. They'll attribute that to the cancer treatment, not knowing that the treatment was never necessary.

potentially going to be life threatening in the future, you'll be treating a lot of those people unnecessarily. But if you look at the survival rates for cancer in those people, they'll look fantastic because a lot of those people didn't need to be treated in the long run. They'll be very healthy. They'll attribute that to the cancer treatment, not knowing that the treatment was never necessary.

Yeah, so what I always say to people is, you know, you have to remember that a lot of the technology we have now to look inside the healthy body has only been available to us for a couple of decades. You know, the MRI scan came into regular use in the 1990s. The really good MRI scanners have only been around for a couple of decades now.

Yeah, so what I always say to people is, you know, you have to remember that a lot of the technology we have now to look inside the healthy body has only been available to us for a couple of decades. You know, the MRI scan came into regular use in the 1990s. The really good MRI scanners have only been around for a couple of decades now.

Yeah, so what I always say to people is, you know, you have to remember that a lot of the technology we have now to look inside the healthy body has only been available to us for a couple of decades. You know, the MRI scan came into regular use in the 1990s. The really good MRI scanners have only been around for a couple of decades now.

So we did not know for a very, very long time what the inside of the healthy body looked like. We were not able to genetically test mass numbers of people until the last 10 years. So what we have is...

So we did not know for a very, very long time what the inside of the healthy body looked like. We were not able to genetically test mass numbers of people until the last 10 years. So what we have is...

So we did not know for a very, very long time what the inside of the healthy body looked like. We were not able to genetically test mass numbers of people until the last 10 years. So what we have is...

sort of we've got all these new types of technology that allow us look inside the healthy body in a way that we never have before and we're detecting things that were always there that we didn't know were there so for example if you look at autism studies of people you will often find that they have small abnormal cells that didn't progress there was a study in detroit of men and they found that 45 of men in their 50s had prostate cancer at the time of death

sort of we've got all these new types of technology that allow us look inside the healthy body in a way that we never have before and we're detecting things that were always there that we didn't know were there so for example if you look at autism studies of people you will often find that they have small abnormal cells that didn't progress there was a study in detroit of men and they found that 45 of men in their 50s had prostate cancer at the time of death

sort of we've got all these new types of technology that allow us look inside the healthy body in a way that we never have before and we're detecting things that were always there that we didn't know were there so for example if you look at autism studies of people you will often find that they have small abnormal cells that didn't progress there was a study in detroit of men and they found that 45 of men in their 50s had prostate cancer at the time of death

their deaths were for things other than prostate cancer and that those numbers were substantially higher as men got older. So huge numbers of men have early cancer cells that never caused them in their prostate, that never caused them health problems. We didn't know about them because we didn't have the means to look for them.

their deaths were for things other than prostate cancer and that those numbers were substantially higher as men got older. So huge numbers of men have early cancer cells that never caused them in their prostate, that never caused them health problems. We didn't know about them because we didn't have the means to look for them.

their deaths were for things other than prostate cancer and that those numbers were substantially higher as men got older. So huge numbers of men have early cancer cells that never caused them in their prostate, that never caused them health problems. We didn't know about them because we didn't have the means to look for them.

So now that we're finding them, we're kind of acting on the assumption that all of them will progress because we simply don't have the knowledge base yet to know what factors make cancer cells grow in some people, but they don't grow in other people. How do you tell a serious cell that will progress from one that doesn't? So these cells have always been there.