logoalt Hacker News

somenameformetoday at 4:57 AM1 replyview on HN

It's not reasonable to use the rates from 30+ years ago because survival rates for all cancers have been sharply increasing for decades. You also need to consider years of life lost if you're going to look at things economically, because you're formulating things as if somebody who died of cervical cancer never existed.

Cervical cancer disproportionately affects older women, even moreso than other cancers. The average age of diagnosis is 50 [1] and so the years of lost life due to cervical cancer is both going to be extremely low and going to disproportionately be very late life years lost. Rates in U30 are already near zero with an extremely high survival rate for those that do get it.

[1] - https://www.cancer.org/cancer/types/cervical-cancer/about/ke...


Replies

pfdietztoday at 5:49 AM

So use the current rate, which is 2.2 per 100,000. The argument is basically the same. The cost/benefit ratio is so good that your quibbles don't change the conclusion.

show 1 reply