For many cancers, the earlier the diagnosis is made, the lighter the treatments and the better the chances of recovery. The interest of early diagnosis is thus to provide better care, but also to limit the sequelae linked to certain treatments.
 

The two ways to act to allow an early diagnosis are:
screening, when it exists, that is to say carrying out detection or surveillance examinations when one feels in good health;
early detection, ie the identification of warning signs as soon as they appear.
 

The screening process:
The objective of screening is to be able to diagnose cancer at an early stage, even if it does not yet produce symptoms, to promote the chances of recovery. Thus, for breast cancer screening, mammography makes it possible to discover anomalies that are not yet visible or palpable.
In some cases, screening can make it possible to detect a so-called “precancerous” lesion and to act preventively to prevent it from developing into cancer. It is thus possible to detect precancerous lesions for cervical cancer and colorectal cancer.