Historically, innovations within the oncology space focused on decreasing disease progression through pharmacological approaches (i.e. some cases resort to intravenous immunotherapy to break down cancer cell growth).
But what if we could detect cancer before it reaches the need for invasive interventions? Combining next-generation oriented diagnostics and therapeutics allows newer clinical developments to decrease metastatic cancer deaths.
1.9 million people in the US are diagnosed with cancer annually (2021 Data). While advanced staged cancers account for the minority of new cases 17%, they are responsible for causing the majority of all cancer-related deaths 55%.
The more we shift and minimize disease progression to regional or localized cases, the more we can conquer the cancer mortality rate.
Source - Ark investment Management LLC (Big Ideas 2023, pp 88)
Source - Ark investment Management LLC (Big Ideas 2023, pp 87)
Innovations within disease prevention have proven to decrease mortality rates in the cardiovascular space, reducing the age-adjusted mortality rate by more than 50%. Meanwhile, cancer deaths only declined by 19% within the same period.
Primary prevention is effort that prevents either a precancerous or cancerous condition from starting (i.e through improved diagnostic screening). Secondary prevention represents the discovery and removal of the pre-cancerous conditions tumours before they metastasized beyond the origin focus point.