Delay In Diagnosis Of Carcinoma Research Articles

Difficulties in Diagnosis of Carcinoma of the Breast in Patients Less Than Fifty Years of Age

Delay in diagnosis of carcinoma of the breast is a significant cause of medical malpractice suits in the United States. Although less than one-third of the patients with carcinoma of the breast are less than 50 years of age, more than two-thirds of these suits involve women less than 50 years of age. To see whether or not there are medical factors that make diagnosis in young women more difficult, we reviewed all patient visits to the East Carolina University (ECU) Breast Clinic between 1 January 1988 and 30 June 1991. Women less than 50 years of age had many more patient visits (1,567 versus 838 visits) and many fewer carcinomas detected (38 versus 100 visits) than women who were more than 50 years old. The sensitivity and positive predictive value of mammography were significantly lower in young women than older women (68 versus 91 percent, p < 0.005, and 28 versus 53 percent, p < 0.001, respectively). Physical examination in young women was also less satisfactory. Tumors were more ill-defined and the percent that were easily palpable were significantly lower (45 versus 72 percent, p < 0.01). Furthermore, there was a basic difference in the reason tumors were not palpable in each age group. In older women, tumors were nonpalpable because they were small (mean size 1.0 versus 4.1 centimeters, p < 0.01), whereas in younger women, the non-palpable tumors were large (mean size 4.0 versus 3.4 centimeters), suggesting that they were not palpable because of background mammary density or diffuse growth pattern rather than size. Data from the Breast Cancer Detection Demonstration Project were analyzed and also suggested that carcinomas are more difficult to diagnose in young women. The percent of carcinomas that were not detectable by either mammogram or physical examination were inversely proportional to age and ranged from 36 percent at 40 years of age to 9 percent at 75 years of age. In addition, data from Blue Cross and Blue Shield and the ECU Breast Clinic indicated that it costs at least twice as much to diagnose each carcinoma in women less than 50 years of age. In conclusion, we believe that currently available techniques for diagnosis of carcinoma of the breast are not satisfactory for women less than 50 years of age and that this, rather than physician error, may account for the large number of malpractice suits in this age group.

Time lag to diagnosis of bladder cancer--influence of psychosocial parameters and level of health-care provision.

Delay in diagnosis of carcinoma of the urinary bladder was studied in 343 patients. The median patient's delay (time from first symptom to first consultation) was 15 days, and was longer when the only presenting symptom was urgency of micturition than when it was haematuria (45 vs. 5 days, p < 0.001). In advanced (T2-T4) tumour, patient's delay was 21 days and in Ta-T1 it was 13 days (NS). The median doctor's delay (time from first consultation to diagnosis) was 62 days. It comprised two phases: A from consultation to first referral and B from first referral to diagnosis-respective medians 6 and 47 days. Median doctor's delay (A+B) was longer when the initial consultation was with a general practitioner than with a urologist (78 vs. 21 days, p < 0.001) and longer in patients older than 70 years (69 vs. 54 days, p < 0.01). Doctor's delay correlated with symptoms, being longest in cases with only urgency and shortest in haematuria plus pain (114 vs. 44 days, p < 0.001), and also with number of referrals (33, 63, 230 and 117 days, respectively, for 0, 1, 2 and 3 referrals). More women than men were referred a second or third time (25.6% vs. 8.6%, p < 0.001), and doctor's delay was longer for women (76 vs. 59 days, p < 0.05). A questionnaire completed by 203 of the 229 surviving patients revealed no significant correlation between psychosocioeconomic factors and patient's delay.

Delay in diagnosis of carcinoma of the stomach: An analysis of 104 cases

1. 1. An analysis of 104 cases of carcinoma of the stomach with regard to duration of symptoms, first symptoms and x-ray diagnosis has been presented. 2. 2. The average duration of symptoms from the onset of illness until a correct diagnosis was made was 14.2 months. The patient delayed 7.8 months and the physician delayed 6.4 months. 3. 3. Epigastric discomfort was the first symptom in 64 per cent of the cases. 4. 4. X-ray diagnosis was correct in 90 per cent of the cases; however, only 47 per cent of these cases were resectable when subjected to surgery. 5. 5. It should be emphasized that weight loss, which so many physicians think indicates cancer, also indicates extensive disease. In the present series weight loss was the first symptom in only 1.9 per cent ol the cases. Anorexia, also considered by many physicians as an important symptom ol cancer, was present in only 5.7 per cent of the cases. It should be emphasized that these two symptoms are late in the disease and careful study of every patient with epigastric symptoms should be made as soon as seen by the physician.