Older people at higher risk of emergency cancer diagnosis

People over 60 are at higher risk of being diagnosed with lung or bowel cancer as an emergency in hospital than younger people, according to a new report, led by the University of Leeds. The researchers also found that women and less affluent people are at higher risk of an emergency lung cancer diagnosis. While being unmarried, divorced or widowed was associated with having bowel cancer diagnosed as an emergency. The review looked at over 20 studies featuring more than 687,000 lung or bowel cancer cases, of which more than 200,000 cases were diagnosed with cancer after an emergency admission to hospital. Some were admitted after seeing a GP, while others were admitted after going to an A&E department, or directly from a hospital outpatient clinic. The researchers wanted to about why so many patients are diagnosed through this emergency route, particularly as emergency-diagnosed cancers tend to have poorer survival rates. Almost 40 per cent of lung cancers and 25 per cent of bowel cancers in England were diagnosed as an emergency in hospital between 2006 and 2010.