by Arnon Chait, PhD, President and CEO, Cleveland Diagnostics
The landscape of cancer prevention, diagnosis, and treatment has changed immeasurably over the last half-century. While cancer remains a devastating health challenge for thousands, the outlook for those with the disease has improved overall, as the U.S. risk of cancer death declined for the 28th consecutive year as of 2022. The resources dedicated to the oncology field are a testament to the impact of cancer and the drive to eradicate it. Global funding for cancer research between 2016 and 2020 totaled roughly $24.5 billion, with efforts dedicated to diagnostics, screening, and monitoring representing about 13% of that amount.
Despite the impressive progress made in developing more effective cancer therapeutics, the value of early detection remains undeniable. Patients diagnosed earlier are more likely to survive cancer and tend to have better care experiences, lower treatment morbidity, and improved quality of life than those with later diagnoses. Approaches for presymptomatic screening and early detection of cancers are thus indispensable to improving patient outcomes and reducing the costs associated with cancer care.
Cancer screening has come a long way since the development and application of the Pap test for cervical cancer detection in 1923. Advances in imaging-based screening and the advent of molecular diagnostic approaches have opened new doors in how clinicians diagnose and understand patients’ unique cancer cases. While accurate and less invasive early detection tools are becoming available, they are not necessarily accessible to the vast majority of patients and providers.
In this article, I’ll review some important milestones and advances in cancer screening and detection methods, important factors to prioritize in the development of diagnostic tools, and how our work at Cleveland Diagnostics aims to address gaps in the field to create tests that are accurate, actionable and accessible.
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