When Dr. Miles Payling, Co-Founder and Chief Scientific Officer of C the Signs, stepped onto the stage at our annual conference, he didn’t bring just a presentation - he brought a map. A timeline of cancer’s journey. From invisible precancerous changes, to early warning signs, to the late-stage diagnoses that steal survival and time.

It was a roadmap of missed chances, but also of possibility. Because every point along that journey is a place where we can intervene - where early detection of cancer is not only possible, but lifesaving.

Cancer’s Changing Face

Miles reminded us that cancer is not static. It is shifting into younger populations at an alarming pace. Today, 40% of cancers in the UK are diagnosed under the age of 65 - the leading cause of premature death in that age group. Among 25–49-year-olds, cancer rates have risen 24% in the last 25 years, far outpacing the growth in older populations.

Yet despite this change, the UK currently only diagnoses 58% of cancers at an early stage. The NHS’s target is 75% by 2028, but we are still far from it. The stakes are clear: survival at stage one is 90%, but at late stage it falls below 30%. For some cancers, like pancreatic, survival is under 5%.

The Challenge of Symptoms

Contrary to outdated myths, early cancer does not mean silent cancer. 95% of patients have symptoms when they are diagnosed, even at early stage. The problem is recognising them.

GPs face an impossible task: in a seven-minute consultation, they must distinguish cancer from among 200 other conditions, in patients of any age, gender, or ethnicity. The result? 45% of cancers are missed at the first appointment. One in five patients must see their GP three times or more before cancer is suspected. And too often, patients only receive their diagnosis in A&E, where one-year survival drops to 40%.

Building Science That Serves

This is why C the Signs exists. As Miles explained, our mission is simple: to give everyone the chance to survive their cancer. And we do this with three interlocking systems:

• Point-of-care decision support: helping GPs risk assess patients in real time, achieving 99% sensitivity and 94% accuracy in predicting tumour origin.
• Patient-led assessments: enabling people to risk assess themselves from home, lowering the threshold for seeking care.
• Case finding: proactively scanning records to identify high-risk patients, ensuring no one is missed.
  

Evidence Beyond Doubt

In just a few years, the results speak louder than theory:

• Over 50,000 cancers identified earlier.
• 8–12% increase in cancer detection rates in primary care.
• 20–50% faster time to diagnosis, accelerating treatment when it matters most.
• Stage shift across multiple cancer types, including a 53% improvement in early ovarian cancer detection and a 133% improvement in pancreatic cancer.
• In collaboration with the Mayo Clinic, C the Signs has even shown it can identify one in four patients up to five years earlier than they would have been without us.
  

Changing the Curve

Miles closed with a truth that resonated deeply: cancer doesn’t appear overnight, and neither does survival. Every delay increases mortality by 10% each month. But every marginal gain - shaving days from diagnostic pathways, catching symptoms on the first GP visit, supporting self-referral, identifying high-risk patients sooner - shifts the curve toward life.

This is not just about beating targets. It’s about transforming the future of cancer care. About proving that with the right science, the right platform, and the right urgency, early diagnosis can become the standard, not the exception.

Because every patient lost too late started as a patient who could have been seen sooner. And with C the Signs, we will not miss that moment again.