Over 63,000 cancer cases were diagnosed between one and five years after referral.
A study led by Queen Mary University of London has revealed that people who were referred to urgent suspected cancer pathways and received an ‘all clear’ have a higher risk of developing cancer in the future.
Published in The Lancet Oncology and funded by Cancer Research UK and Barts Charity, researchers found that patients who were referred had a higher-than-expected risk of developing cancer within one to five years after the initial ‘all clear’ compared to those who had not been referred.
Currently the most common route to diagnosis in England, 7% of the three million patients who went through the urgent suspected cancer referral pathway were found to have cancer, revealing a large group of understudied patients that may be in need of support.
Researchers from Queen Mary, King’s College London, the University of Oxford and NHS England’s National Disease Registration Service analysed the health data of over one million NHS patients in England who received the ‘all clear’ following an urgent referral for suspected cancer to determine their future cancer risk.
Between one and five years after the referral, 63,112 cases of cancer were diagnosed.
Additionally, after five years, the risk of any cancer in this group was over 4.5% which is higher than people of similar age and gender in the general population.
The results suggest that subsequent cancers could be caused by high-risk factors, including poor diet, smoking or alcohol consumption.
An opportunity to provide additional support, including proactive monitoring or targeted interventions like cancer awareness or risk reduction initiatives, could benefit patients without a cancer diagnosis on the referral pathway.
Suzanne Scott, professor of health psychology and early cancer diagnosis at Queen Mary, said: “We found that having cancer ruled out doesn’t lessen the future risk of cancer.
“The timing of urgent suspected cancer referrals could be an opportunity to raise cancer awareness and consider ways to reduce [the] risk of cancer and other serious diseases, by making a positive change in health behaviour.”
