In 2005 S.S. Birring and M.D. Peake of Glenfield Hospital published a summary article on lung cancer symptoms and early diagnosis. The article showed lung cancer to be the most deadly type of cancer: in England alone, in 2002, it killed almost 30 thousand people. Despite the relatively good survival rate over 5 years (60% when diagnosed in the early stages), in reality, only one in ten English people survived the disease for that long. The reason for this was late diagnosis, even though it can take as long as 8 years for breast cancer to reach the stage in which it is most often detected.
In 2017, G.A. Roth et al. of the University of Washington published global statistics on cardiovascular disease from 1990 to 2015. Despite a significant improvement in the situation over the quarter of a century of observation, 422.7 million cases of cardiovascular diseases (total) were recorded worldwide in 2015. These led to 17.9 million deaths, making cardiovascular diseases the leading cause of death in the world. Moreover, men were shown to be more susceptible to death from cardiovascular diseases, with coronary artery disease and the resulting increased likelihood of a stroke being the most fatal among such diseases.
S.R. Rasmussen et al. of Data Sciences International published a 2007 paper on the impact of preventive examinations – or checkups. The study observed 2000 people over a period of 6 years. The participants were divided into three groups: a control group that underwent no checkups, a group that was administered periodic checkups by a family doctor, and a group that was administered regular checkups by a specialist. Those who had periodic check-ups with a doctor had an 8% increase in life expectancy compared with those who went without checkups. Those who were prescribed a regular mandatory checkup schedule had a 14% longer life expectancy.
S. Brunner-Ziegler et al. from the Medical University of Vienna published a paper on preventive medical examinations among Austrians in 2013. It turned out that out of 15,474 respondents, only 42% had been examined at least once in the last three years, even though the service is free for all insured residents. These were mostly people over 40, with high levels of education and income, and, as a rule, already suffering from chronic diseases. Despite such a discouraging result, the Austrian data was shown to be relatively high in comparison with other countries.