Also included in: Cancer / Oncology;??Women's health / Gynecology
Article Date: June 25, 2013-0:00 PDT current ratings for:
700 Women with urinary Cancers missing out on prompt diagnosis each year
Family physicians can be attributing symptoms of cancer of the bladder and kidneys, causes harmless
About 700 women in England with the symptoms of cancer of the kidney or bladder are missing out on a fast diagnosis and treatment of their condition, each year, research reveals in the journal online only BMJ Open.
It may be because of family physicians tend to give women, rather than men - first symptoms benign causes, such as bacterial infections and some women therefore need to visit their doctor several times before they are referred to a specialist, i.e. researchers.
Currently, the survival rates for cancer of the kidney and bladder in England show that fewer women than men living five years after diagnosis.
The researchers studied the numbers of patients diagnosed as cancer of the kidney and the bladder in England between 2009 and 2010. They used data from the National Audit of the diagnosis of Cancer in Primary Care, covering general practices representing 1170 - equivalent to about 14% of the total national. They studied two interrelated measures of the speed of diagnosis: the number of consultations, the patient is before he transferred. and the time interval between the first visit to the GP with symptoms and specialist referral.
In total, 920 patients have been diagnosed with cancer of the bladder during the study period, 252 (27%) were women; and 398 have been diagnosed with cancer of the kidney, 165 (42%) were women. These proportions are similar to national figures: 28% and 38%, respectively.
Women were nearly twice as likely than men to have consulted their doctor three or more times, before they were referred to a specialist, the analysis showed.
About one in ten (11%) men with bladder cancer had three or more visits before referral, compared to 27% of women. The corresponding figures for the kidney cancer were 18% and 30%.
The interval between the first GP consultation mean and specialist orientation is a not differ greatly between men and women - four against six days for bladder cancer and 10 to 16 days for kidney cancer. But among the 25% of women experiencing more delays, it took two more weeks to get referred that the 25% of men with longer deadlines. When this has been reduced to 10% of those who know longer delays, the figure rose to more than two months for women with bladder cancer and more than three weeks for those who have cancer of the kidney, compared with men.
Two-thirds of all patients with cancer of the bladder and a quarter of people with kidney cancer had blood in their urine (Hematuria), a symptom of the red flag for further investigation.
But the presence or absence of this symptom could not explain the difference between the sexes in the period of reference, the analysis said.
Even when they came to see their doctor with hematuria, women with bladder cancer were more than three times as likely to have three or more visits GP before the switch compared to men with the same symptom.
And women with kidney cancer were almost twice as likely as men to discover three or more consultations, when he had blood in their urine.
As nearly 3,000 women are diagnosed every cancer each year in England, the authors calculate that about 700 women will experience delays in diagnosis.
Reinforce the need to follow the guidelines and view the blood in the suspicious urine could encourage GPs to guide women faster, but it will not help in cases where this symptom is not present, warn the authors, requiring new approaches to address this problem.
"Great potential to improve the speed of diagnosis of cancer of the urinary tract in women, the conclusions of signals", the authors write. "Interventions to prevent the initial allocation of hematuria in women with cancer of the urinary tract to cause benign [GPs] must be quickly developed and evaluated," they urge.
Article adapted by Medical News Today press release original. Click on "references" tab above for the source.Visit our Urology / Nephrology section for the latest news on this subject. "Gender inequalities in the promptness of the bladder and the kidney after symptomatic presentation: evidence from secondary analysis of a survey of primary care English checking ',
Georgios Lyratzopoulos et al.
BMJ Open 2013; 3:e002861. DOI 10.1136/bmjopen-2013-002861, please use one of the following formats to cite this article in your essay, paper, or report:
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June 25, 2013.
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700 Women with urinary Cancers missing out on prompt diagnosis each year"
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