[Retric]

There are also plenty of screening tests that catch multiple kinds of cancers. But focusing on individual tests misses the forest for the trees. Sure when you look at ever smaller subsets the benefits can seem smaller in each subset, however that’s directly offset by there being more groups.

Critically, these studies are backward looking they can tell you want taking such a test in 2017 followed by getting treatment in 2017 might do, but that doesn’t directly translate to what taking a test in 2024 would be worth.

As to changing all-cause mortality, when you’re talking 8 billion people even moving the needle by a single day represents another 5 years for 4 million people. That’s a big deal.

Treatments for the young tend to move the needle more because the young are likely to live longer. However in the developed world we’ve mostly plucked the low hanging fruit. That’s more or less the definition of a developed country, the obvious routes for development have already happened.