Studying presenting symptoms in cancer patients
Research type
Research Study
Full title
Secondary analysis of previously collected anonymous data to examine associations between presenting symptoms and measures of diagnostic timeliness in cancer patients included in the English National Audit of Cancer Diagnosis 2014\n
IRAS ID
235010
Contact name
Georgios (Yoryos) Lyratzopoulos
Contact email
Sponsor organisation
University College London
Duration of Study in the UK
2 years, 11 months, 28 days
Research summary
Cancer is the leading cause of death in England. Improving the survival of cancer patients can help to reduce cancer mortality, and one way to improve survival is to diagnose cancer at an earlier stage. Avoiding delays from symptom onset to presentation (help-seeking), and from presentation to diagnosis, can increase the chance of diagnosing cancer at an early stage.\n\nPrevious research, including by our Group, has described how patient characteristics and the type of cancer (e.g. breast, lung, prostate, colon….) can influence: a) how quickly patients seek medical help once they experience symptoms; and b) how quickly doctors suspect the diagnosis of cancer and instigate appropriate assessment. \n\nHowever, 2 key questions remain: 1. Whether different symptoms influence the speed by which patients are diagnosed (i.e. the speed by which they seek help, or doctors instigate assessments); b) whether certain symptoms are associated with higher / lower risk of diagnosis of cancer at advanced stage. \n\nThese are important questions, as cancer can present with a large range of symptoms, and because if we knew which symptoms confer a higher risk of diagnostic delay (and higher risk advanced stage at diagnosis) we can better target public health education campaigns about cancer symptoms, increasing their effectiveness.\n\nTo acquire insights into these questions, we will analyse already collected anonymous data from the English National Cancer Diagnosis Audit (NCDA) dataset held by the National Cancer Registration and Analysis Service of Public Health England. After describing the presenting symptoms associated with a particular cancer type, we will use these anonymous data to examine a) how different symptoms relate to the length of pre-presentation and post-presentation intervals; b) the association between presenting symptoms and stage at diagnosis.\n
REC name
London - Hampstead Research Ethics Committee
REC reference
18/LO/0377
Date of REC Opinion
26 Feb 2018
REC opinion
Favourable Opinion