As far as I can tell from the public reports, McCain's discovery of this was pretty early. As far as I can tell, they didn't even see anything other than the blood clot until they actually took the clot out and biopsied it. That's when they found one or more cancer cells.
I'm no expert at all in this, but it sounds to me that this is about as early a detection as one can hope for. Perhaps the chemo can nip it in the bud, at least for a few more years.
I can only assume that's he's getting every test known to man to see if it has spread to anywhere else, and that he'll get the latest drugs/treatments available.
“As far as I can tell from the public reports, McCain’s discovery of this was pretty early. As far as I can tell, they didn’t even see anything other than the blood clot until they actually took the clot out and biopsied it. That’s when they found one or more cancer cells.”
I think it would be specious to think that his cancer was “discovered” by reason of the surgery to remove the blood clot. Medical imaging is so good today that it would be almost unthinkable that McCain didn’t have a CT Scan or some other form of medical imaging prior to surgery. And that imaging would have shown the doctors everything. No one has surgery today without through medical imaging beforehand.
My wife has had three back surgeries and open-heart surgery to replace one of her heart valves. Medical imaging was key to identifying her problems and providing a clear roadmap for the surgeons to effectively treat her.