Cancer stages: What do Chinese cancer patients know?

Abstract

e19611 Background: Disclosure of cancer diagnosis and prognosis to a patient is still a problem in China. Chinese patients who know their cancer diagnosis may not know the true disease stage. The objective is to investigate whether cancer patient know about their real disease stage. Methods: A questionnaire was delivered to 190 cancer patients who knew their cancer diagnosis Results: One hundred and sixty-five cancer patients (86.8%) completed the questionnaire. Most of them (70.3%) knew cancer diagnosis immediately after the diagnosis. Twenty five patients (15.2%) knew cancer diagnosis within one week after the diagnosis. However, fifty patients (30.3%) said that they knew nothing about their disease stage. Most of these 50 patients were diagnosed as stage 4 diseases (74.0%). One hundred and fifteen patients (69.7%) believed that they knew their disease stages. These stages, which patients believed, differed significantly from their real stages (P = 0.000). Actually, only 70.4% patients among them knew their real stages. Therefore, 50.9% patients (84 out of 165) didn't know their real disease stages. Patient with stage 1-3 cancer was more likely to know the real disease stage than patient with stage 4 disease (67.1% vs. 31.3%, P < 0.001). Conclusions: Our findings indicated that only half of Chinese cancer patients knew the real disease stage. Patient with stage 1-3 cancer was more likely to know the real disease stage than patient with stage 4 disease. No significant financial relationships to disclose.