On cancer, do you think if you trained doctors’ especially to detect early signs of cancer could we save more people,

Question: On cancer, do you think if you trained doctors' especially to detect early signs of cancer could we save more people, or prolong their life-span?
- Keywords:
  cancer,
  detect,
  doctor,
  early,
  life-span,
  prolong,
  save,
  signs,
  trained
Asked by tanz to Sarah on 23 Mar 2011 in Categories: Your Research.
- Sarah Thomas answered on 23 Mar 2011:
  
  Yes I believe that if doctors diagnose patients with cancer in its early stages, that the patient has a greater chance of survival or at the very least, it would prolong their life. Cancer is much easier to treat early on, before it starts to spread to other places in the body, and before it makes the patient weak and unable to fight it.
  
  However, it is very hard for doctors to diagnose patients with cancer until they fall very ill as the symptoms are hard to spot and could be explained by other conditions. For example, my granny fell ill one xmas and she couldn’t swallow her food. When she went to see the doctor, it turned out she had a tumour in her throat and the doctor estimated that it had been there for about 9-10 years before it made her ill.
  
  Typical symptoms of cancer are localised pain, tiredness, easy bruising, anemia, or lumps. There are lots of other symptoms depending where in the body the cancer is.

Question: On cancer, do you think if you trained doctors' especially to detect early signs of cancer could we save more people, or prolong their life-span?