An increase in survival rates among screen-detected cases would be expected if screening was detecting neuroblastoma at an earlier and more curable stage.

For years we have been told that early detection is the only way to insure that you will find breast cancer at a curable stage.

Only 16 percent of lung cancers are found at a potentially curable stage; the disease is fatal in more than 90 percent of cases over all.

The study demonstrates the urgent need for a screening tool to diagnose this disease in its earliest, most curable stage.

The most important thing is to detect the cancer early, when it's at a curable stage, and that's what this work is all about.

Colon cancer can almost always be caught by colonoscopy in its earliest and most curable stages.

Some, he said, "are fast-growing, like shooting stars, and we're not likely to catch many of these at small, highly curable stages even with the best mammography."

But she has already begun regular checkups, including annual mammograms, so that should a cancer develop, it might be detected at a curable stage.

This is the most treatable and most curable stage.

Also, the cancer is now readily detected in its early and highly curable stages by a $50 blood test, the PSA.