Patients from general practice with non-specific cancer symptoms: a retrospective study of symptoms and imaging.

Background: Patients with non-specific symptoms or signs of cancer (NSSC) present a challenge as they are a heterogeneous population who are not candidates for fast-track work-up in an organ-specific cancer pre-planned pathway (CPP). Denmark has a cancer pre-planned pathway for this population (NSSC-CPP), but several issues remain unclarified, for example, distribution and significance of symptoms and findings, and choice of imaging.

Aim: To investigate symptoms, cancer diagnoses, and diagnostic yield of computed tomography (CT) and fluorine-18 fluorodeoxyglucose positron emission tomography/computed tomography (F-FDG-PET/CT) in patients on NSSC-CPP to improve the overall diagnostic process.

Design & Setting: A retrospective medical chart review in a 1-year consecutive cohort (2020).

Method: A total of 802 referrals were reviewed for diagnostic imaging in patients with NSSP from general practices, specialist practices, or the local hospital diagnostic centre responsible for NSSC-CPP.

Results: The study included 248 patients; 21% had cancer, most frequently gastrointestinal cancer (27%). The most frequent symptom was weight loss (56%). CT had a sensitivity of 85%, specificity of 87%, positive predictive value (PPV) of 65%, and negative predictive value (NPV) of 96%. For F-FDG-PET/CT, the numbers were sensitivity 82%, specificity 62%, PPV 33%, and NPV 94%. Patients frequently underwent subsequent examinations following initial imaging.

Conclusion: The findings were in accordance with the literature. Patients with NSSC had a cancer prevalence of 21%, most frequently gastrointestinal. The most frequent symptom was weight loss and, even as the only symptom, it is a potential marker for cancer. CT and F-FDG-PET/CT were sensitive with high NPV, whereas PPV was superior in CT. Better stratification by symptoms or findings is an obvious focus point for future studies to further optimise the NSSC-CPP work-up strategy.