“A GP will see only around eight cases of cancer a year, on average, among hundreds of people with symptoms that might indicate cancer, so making appropriate referral decisions can be challenging”
Quote from Jessica Harris Cancer Research UK
The Number Of GP Visits Before Cancer Patients Are Referred To Specialists
'Great potential' for new cancer diagnosis tool’ Physicists using a particle accelerator at Daresbury in Cheshire, believe they may have come up with a new diagnostic tool for a particularly aggressive form of throat cancer.
I think education for the GP's is needed and hopefully this 'tool' would be a benefit.
When I had a suspicious mole on my back, I was refered immediatly to a dermatlologist who I saw 2 weeks later, had the mole removed that day and 1 week after that had a diagnosis of a malignant melanoma. It was caught at stage 1A. needed furrher surgery only.
My lung cancer however was a different story, it took a total of 10 months, 6 visits to gp including xrays, an admission to hospital where I was diagnosed with pneumonia. Eventually refered to hospital to see thorasic med consultant, then cardiothorasic surgeon. I had surgery, a thoracotomy, but I was stage IV so was literally an 'open & close'.
My dad with bladder cancer saw the gp 10 times over a 14 month period before being refered to see a consultant. Stage 3A on diagnosis needing cystectomy. My mum had bowel cancer too and was told she would have to wait 12 months for a hospital refreral, so my dad paid privatly for a colonoscopy and luckily it was picked up at stage 1A.
My Dad's stage 3a lung cancer took 11 months to be diagnosed GP's kept giving him asthma inhalers nasal sprays and antibiotics He had an xray after about 4-5 months of GP visits after demanding to be referred and it was missed on the xray too - we've had people look at this initial xray since and they recognised it was lung cancer!! So frustrating - he didn't start getting treatment until 4th Jan 2011 over 13 months after he'd been complaining to GP's about his chest and coughing up blood - If they had recognised it at the beginning maybe my Dad wouldn't be suffering so much now and we wouldn't be facing losing him so soon. Certainly something needs to be done to in terms of early diagnosis surely it would save the NHS cash in the longer term too :/
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Mum diagnosed with stage 4 lung cancer which has spread to pleura
LUNG CANCER SUPPORT
Value of Lung Cancer Nurse Specialists Survey
