Shortly after "Spider-Man: No Way Home" opened, Andrew Garfield, Tobey Maguire, and director Jon Watts snuck into a screening of the film. "I just watched with my baseball cap and mask on," said Garfield.
Unfortunately, most folks don't get to their important screenings at all.
That's the finding of a University of Chicago analysis. Researchers found that while many cancers don't have screenings available, many people don't take advantage of what is.
For example, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, only 69% of Americans ages 50 to 79 are up-to-date on colon cancer screenings. Similarly, only 69% of women over 40 have had a mammogram in the past two years.
The other available — and underused — cancer screenings include HPV and Pap tests for cervical cancer, low-dose CT scans for those at high risk for lung cancer, and PSA tests for prostate cancer. That all contributes to the fact that only one in seven cancers is caught through screening.
One potential solution is a blood test that identifies multiple cancers. In 2021, researchers found that a multicancer early detection blood test called Galleri can spot more than 50 types of cancer. For the 12 cancers that cause around two-thirds of all U.S. cancers deaths, "Galleri finds about 40% of stage I cancers, 67% of stage II cancers, 80% of stage III cancers, and 95% of stage IV cancers," says the Cleveland Clinic's Dr. Eric Klein.
Although it needs to be shown that this test saves lives, and it isn't yet approved by the Food and Drug Administration, stay tuned to your favorite screen for breaking news.