Cancer diagnosis: Charity says 'we must still do better'

Findings revealed at this year’s Public Health England (PHE) Conference show the proportion of cancers diagnosed as a result of emergency presentation at hospital has decreased by several per cent.

At the same time, the proportion of cancers diagnosed through urgent GP referral with a suspicion of cancer (known as the two-week wait) has increased.

The charity Cancer Research UK, however, says “we must still do better”.

Commenting on the overall results, Julia Verne, head of clinical epidemiology at PHE, said: “The reason this is good news is because patients diagnosed as an emergency presentation have lower chances of survival compared to those diagnosed in other routes.

“These improvements in routes to cancer diagnosis follow several years of work across the sector to improve early diagnosis in England. Our work however, is not complete; while emergency presentation is declining it still remains high for cancers like liver and pancreas.”

Presented at the second day of the PHE Conference 2015, these results have been taken from updated data, covering patients diagnosed with cancer from 2006 to 2013, with the results from 2011 to 2013 being published for the first time.

In 2006 almost 25 per cent of cancers, one in four, were diagnosed as an emergency. In 2013 this figure had fallen to 20 per cent, or one in five. This is set against an overall rise in the numbers of cases of cancer.

For a common cancer such as lung cancer, the proportion of those diagnosed through the GP two-week wait referral route increased from 22 per cent in 2006 to 28 per cent in 2013, while the proportion of those diagnosed through emergency presentation fell each year, from 39 per cent in 2006 down to 35 per cent in 2013.

Sara Hiom, director of early diagnosis at Cancer Research UK, commented: “It’s really encouraging to see fewer people being diagnosed through emergency routes, because we know survival is poorer and the experience is worse for these patients. When cancer is caught early, we have more options for treatments and a far better chance of beating the disease.

“But we must still do better. It’s unacceptable to see such variation in patient care continuing, and too many people are still being diagnosed as an emergency in hospital. As well as variation by cancer type and between hospitals, there are also significant differences in the treatment of our older patients, such as being much less likely to have surgery than younger ones.

“The new cancer strategy makes clear recommendations for how we can improve England’s cancer survival and patients’ experience. There should be no reason why we can’t be as good as the best in the world.”