Early detection is what the industry wants so they can improve their 5-year survival stats. And of course increase the total addressable market for conventional treatment options
Scott Alexander has an interesting blog post about this:
Official statistics say we are winning the War on Cancer. Cancer incidence rates, mortality rates, and five-year-survival rates have generally been moving in the right direction over the past few decades.
More skeptical people offer an alternate narrative.
[...]
Suppose a certain cancer is untreatable and will kill you in ten years. If it’s always discovered after seven years, five-year-survival-rate will be 0%. If it’s always discovered after two years, five-year-survival-rate will be 100%. Better screening can shift the percent of cases discovered after seven years vs. two years, and so shift the five-year-survival rate, but the same number of people will be dying of cancer as ever.
This post tries to figure out which narrative is more accurate.
