Why early cancer screening can’t wait

As president and CEO of Gilda’s Club South Florida, a non-profit that offers free programs for cancer patients and their families, I see both the heartbreak of cancer and the incredible strength of the people who face it.

I will never forget one family who lost a husband and father just one year after he was diagnosed with Stage 4 pancreatic cancer.

He did everything right. He monitored his health. He saw his doctors. But pancreatic cancer – also known as the silent killer – has no routine screening test. Like so many others, his cancer was found only after it had already spread. Even with aggressive treatment, clinical trials, and a will to live that inspired everyone around him, medicine was forced into a defensive position.

Stories like his are the reason I cannot accept the status quo and why I am determined to focus on the new possibilities before us.

Today, routine cancer screening exists for only five cancers: breast, cervical, colorectal, prostate, and high-risk lung cancer. Yet cancer does not confine itself to those five places. Many of the deadliest cancers, including pancreatic cancer, have no regular screening at all. Too often, there simply are no early warning signs.

Nearly half of cancer deaths are tied to cancers diagnosed at Stage 4, when options are limited – not because people “waited too long,” but because we had no way to find the disease sooner.

That is beginning to change. New technologies are offering hope for detecting cancer earlier, before symptoms appear and before it spreads. Multi-cancer early detection (MCED) blood tests are designed to detect signals associated with dozens of cancer types through a simple blood draw. While they are not a replacement for existing recommended screenings, these tests represent a critical step toward expanding our ability to detect cancers that currently have no routine screening options before symptoms appear.

Earlier this year, the Multi-Cancer Early Detection Screening Coverage (MCED) Act was signed into law, creating a pathway for Medicare coverage of these tests once they receive FDA approval. That is a truly exciting milestone. It means that as these innovations are validated, seniors will be able to benefit from them without delay. I am deeply grateful to the many members of Florida’s congressional delegation who supported this bipartisan legislation and helped turn this promise into reality for Florida families.

Earlier detection changes everything: when cancer is detected before it metastasizes, patients and their doctors have more treatment options. It gives people time to fight, time to plan, and time to live.

The man we lost had an extraordinary will to live. What he didn’t have was the chance to catch his cancer early. Now, for the first time, we have a real opportunity to change that story for countless families. If we are serious about reducing cancer deaths, we must embrace early detection, support innovative tools like MCED alongside existing screenings, and make sure they are accessible to the people who need them most.

We can do better, and with these advances, we finally have the power to give more families the fighting chance they deserve.

___

Kim Praitano is president and CEO of Gilda’s Club South Florida.