If you learn you have cancer would you be comfortable not treating it? Elizabeth Tracey reports

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Rates of eight different types of cancer are increasing in those aged 50 and younger, new data reveal, and while researchers are struggling to identify why, another question those diagnosed must answer is are they okay not treating it? That’s because the data show that although rates of diagnosis are rising, deaths are not. Johns Hopkins Kimmel Cancer Center director William Nelson comments.

Nelson: Are we diagnosing and detecting these cancers more commonly because we have more sensitive ways to detect them, so we're detecting perhaps cancers that are small, were destined to stay small and never cause a problem. The worry of that is if we diagnose and detect those cancers that are small and never really going to cause a problem and our inclination is to treat and then we subject people to the hazard, side effects, complications of treating them without providing them much in the way of the benefit.   :28

Nelson says a strategy called active surveillance or watchful waiting means your cancer will be monitored and if something indicates it’s starting to become a problem treatment may be initiated then, although this may be too anxiety provoking for some. At Johns Hopkins, I’m Elizabeth Tracey.