We plan to assess how well blood test abnormalities and trends inform cancer risk in patients with other types of non-specific symptoms, such as fatigue and vomiting
Pradeep Virdee
Among the more than 275,000 patients included in the study, nearly 14,000 were subsequently diagnosed with cancer within six months, allowing researchers to relate abnormalities on single tests and trends over repeat blood tests to cancer diagnosis. Overall, 23 blood test trends were associated with overall cancer risk. Several abnormalities were also associated with specific cancer types. After accounting for age and sex, several blood test trends were more discriminative for cancer diagnosis than individual abnormal test results. For example, trends in white blood count and neutrophils were linked to lung cancer while trends in red blood cell count, hematocrit, and platelet-to-lymphocyte ratio were associated with prostate cancer.
The findings suggest that monitoring changes in routine blood test results in patients with unexplained weight loss could identify patients in primary care who would benefit from additional cancer testing.
Author Brian Nicholson adds, “We show how blood test results are made more accurate for cancer by adding patient age and sex. This relatively simple calculation could easily be performed at the laboratory.”
Author Pradeep Virdee states, “In some instances, monitoring how a patient’s blood test results change over time could offer further value. We plan to assess how well blood test abnormalities and trends inform cancer risk in patients with other types of non-specific symptoms, such as fatigue and vomiting.”
Source: PLOS