Publications by authors named "Alina Z Falborg"

Article Synopsis
  • This study examines how patients with psychiatric disorders perceive the cancer diagnostic process in Danish general practices, highlighting potential challenges in their experiences.
  • Involving 3,411 cancer patients, it found that 13% had psychiatric disorders, who often felt the time between booking and consultations was inadequate and expressed greater cancer-related worries.
  • The study concluded that despite some differences in concerns about cancer, overall experiences with the diagnostic process were similar between patients with and without psychiatric disorders.
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Objective: To characterise and explore the development in the number and content of urine samples sent from general practice in the North Denmark Region to the Department of Clinical Microbiology (DCM) at Aalborg University Hospital during a five-year period.

Design: A register-based study.

Setting: General practice.

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Unplanned presentation in the cancer pathway is more common in patients with psychiatric disorders than in patients without. More knowledge about the risk factors for unplanned presentation could help target interventions to ensure earlier diagnosis of cancer in patients with psychiatric disorders. This study aims to estimate the association between patient characteristics (social characteristics and coexisting physical morbidity) and cancer diagnosis following unplanned presentation among cancer patients with psychiatric disorders.

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Background: The time interval from first symptom and sign until a cancer diagnosis significantly affects the prognosis. Therefore, recognising and acting on signs of cancer, such as anaemia, is essential. Evidence is sparse on the overall risk of cancer and the risk of specific cancer types in persons with new-onset anaemia detected in an unselected general practice population.

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Article Synopsis
  • The International Cancer Benchmarking Partnership studied how ovarian cancer is diagnosed and the time from symptom onset to treatment across five countries, analyzing data from over 1,100 patients.
  • Key findings revealed no significant differences in initial diagnosis symptoms, but there were notable inconsistencies in urgent referral rates and intervals from diagnosis to treatment, particularly when compared to Denmark.
  • The research emphasizes the need for improvements in the diagnostic process and encourages learning from different healthcare systems to enhance timely ovarian cancer diagnosis and treatment.
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Background: Poor cancer prognosis has been observed in patients with pre-existing psychiatric disorders. Therefore, we need better knowledge about the diagnosis of cancer in this patient group. The aim of the study was to describe the routes to cancer diagnosis in patients with pre-existing psychiatric disorders and to analyse how cancer type modified the routes.

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Article Synopsis
  • The study aimed to analyze the frequency of visits to general practice among patients diagnosed with 11 types of abdominal cancer in the year leading up to their diagnosis.
  • It involved nearly 48,000 patients in Denmark, focusing on various factors such as gender, age, and comorbidity during consultations.
  • Results indicated that certain cancers like liver, pancreatic, and kidney had higher numbers of pre-diagnostic visits, suggesting potential missed opportunities for early diagnosis that require further investigation.
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Background: Anaemia is associated with adverse outcomes, including increased morbidity and all-cause mortality. Diagnostic workup of patients with anaemia is essential to detect underlying disease, especially undiagnosed malignancy.

Objective: To describe the cancer-relevant diagnostic workup in patients with new-onset anaemia detected in general practice.

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Background: Rurald wellers with colorectal cancer have poorer outcomes than their urban counterparts. The reasons why are not known but are likely to be complex and be determined by an interplay between geography and health service organization. By comparing the associations related to travel-time to primary and secondary healthcare facilities in two neighbouring countries, Denmark and Scotland, we aimed to shed light on potential mechanisms.

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Background: The prognosis of cancer is related to how the cancer is identified, and where in the healthcare system the patient presents, i.e. routes to diagnosis (RtD).

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Background: Anaemia can be a pointer of underlying severe disease, including undiagnosed malignancy. Subsequent blood tests are essential to classify the anaemia into subtypes and to facilitate targeted diagnostic investigation to ensure timely diagnosis of underlying disease.

Objective: We aimed to describe and classify anaemia based on laboratory tests from patients with new-onset anaemia detected in general practice.

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Objective: To analyse healthcare utilisation in colorectal cancer (CRC) survivors in the 12 months preceding a diagnosis of CRC recurrence.

Methods: This register-based cohort study included curatively treated survivors of CRC diagnosed in 2008-2018. Survivors with CRC recurrence were matched 1:5 with recurrence-free survivors.

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Background: Abdominal cancers represent 30% of all diagnosed cancers. Nevertheless, it is unknown if the general practitioner's (GP's) initial cancer suspicion varies for different abdominal cancer types and how this is associated with referrals to standardized cancer patient pathways (CPPs).

Objectives: To explore initial cancer suspicion in GPs and to investigate how this was associated with GP referrals to CPPs and the duration of the primary care interval (PCI) in 10 different abdominal cancer types.

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Background: More than 11,500 abdominal cancers are yearly diagnosed in Denmark. Nevertheless, little is known about which investigations the patients undergo before a diagnosis of abdominal cancer. We aimed to investigate the frequency and timing of selected diagnostic investigations during the year preceding an abdominal cancer diagnosis.

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Background: The routes to diagnosis and the time intervals along the diagnostic pathway affect cancer outcomes. Some data on routes to diagnosis and milestone dates can be extracted from registries or databases. When this data is incomplete, inaccurate or non-existing, other data sources are needed.

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Background: The organisation of cancer follow-up is under scrutiny in many countries, and general practice is suggested to become more involved. A central focus is timely detection of recurring previous cancer and new second primary cancer. More knowledge on the patient pathway before cancer recurrence and second primary cancer is warranted to ensure the best possible organisation of follow-up.

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Introduction: The aim of this study was to determine whether variation in transvaginal ultrasound examination rates in Danish general practice populations is associated with ovarian cancer outcomes, and to explore the impact of the introduction of a cancer patient pathway for ovarian cancer.

Material And Methods: We performed a national register-based cohort study of gynecological cancer-free women aged 40 years or above, living in Denmark and listed with a specific general practitioner in 2004-2014. Practice populations were divided into quartiles according to the general practitioners' transvaginal ultrasound propensity in the preceding year.

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Objective: Specialised follow-up care after cancer treatment is changing towards increased involvement of general practice. To ensure timely detection of new cancer events, knowledge is warranted on the timing of cancer recurrence (CR) and second primary cancer (SPC), including risk factors for CR.

Methods: This population-based register study included 67,092 patients diagnosed with malignant melanoma, bladder, lung, ovarian, endometrial, colorectal and breast cancer in Denmark in 2008-2016.

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Objective: To investigate the relationship between tumour stage at diagnosis and selected components of primary and secondary care in the diagnostic interval for breast, colorectal, lung and ovarian cancers.

Methods: Observational study based on data from 6,162 newly diagnosed symptomatic cancer patients from Module 4 of the International Cancer Benchmarking Partnership. We analysed the odds of advanced stage of cancer as a flexible function of the length of primary care interval (days from first presentation to referral) and secondary care interval (days from referral to diagnosis), respectively, using logistic regression with restricted cubic splines.

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Background: Ovarian cancer (OC) survival rates are lower in Denmark than in countries with similar health care. Prolonged time to diagnosis could be a contributing factor. The Danish cancer patient pathway (CPP) for OC was introduced in 2009.

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Longer cancer pathways may contribute to rural-urban survival disparities, but research in this area is lacking. We investigated time to diagnosis and treatment for rural and urban patients with colorectal or breast cancer in Victoria, Australia. Population-based surveys (2013-2014) of patients (aged ≥40, approached within 6 months of diagnosis), primary care physicians (PCPs), and specialists were collected as part of the International Cancer Benchmarking Partnership, Module 4.

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Background: Detection of cancer in general practice is challenging because symptoms are diverse. Even so-called alarm symptoms have low positive predictive values of cancer. Nevertheless, appropriate referral is crucial.

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Background: Continuing medical education (CME) in earlier cancer diagnosis was launched in Denmark in 2012 as part of the Danish National Cancer Plan. The CME programme was introduced to improve the recognition among general practitioners (GPs) of symptoms suggestive of cancer and improve the selection of patients requiring urgent investigation. This study aims to explore the effect of CME on GP knowledge about cancer diagnosis, attitude towards own role in cancer detection, self-assessed readiness to investigate and cancer risk assessment of urgently referred patients.

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