…Could help doctors diagnose the disease
A calculator which predicts a patient’s risk of having bowel cancer could help doctors decide when to refer patients makes better referral decisions rather than relying on individual symptoms, a new study shows. The research, published in the British Journal of Cancer, shows that the bowel cancer calculator was better at predicting whether patients had bowel cancer – compared with relying on individual bowel cancer symptoms. The calculator could help GPs identify people who are at increased risk of having undetected colorectal cancer so that they could be sent for referral or further tests. The study is the first to independently evaluate a new model developed by researchers at the University of Nottingham and being considered for a pilot by the Department of Health as part of its plans to improve early diagnosis. The QCancer calculator uses seven risk factors for bowel cancer in women and nine in men to predict their risk of having the disease, including age, presence of symptoms and lifestyle behaviours. This study looked at over 2.1 million patients between 2000 and 2008 from which more than 3,700 cases of bowel cancer were identified. Researchers found that using the QCancer calculator nearly three quarters of bowel cancers were identified in both men and in women. But using the symptom of rectal bleeding – only 34 per cent of women and 40 per cent of men were diagnosed with bowel cancer. Similarly, using the single symptom of abdominal pain around one third of bowel cancers were picked up.
