Number of primary care-led investigations ordered by the GP as part of the diagnostic assessment prior to referral
| Investigation group (N= 16 762, excluding not knowns) | Percentage of patients investigated by test typea (N= 16 762) | ||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| No investigations,b n (%) | Not known, n | Blood tests, n (%) | Urinary tests, n (%) | Imaging, n (%) | Endoscopy, n (%) | Other, n (%) | |
| Total | 9160 (54.6) | 280 | 5795 (34.6) | 212 (1.3) | 3289 (19.6) | 267 (1.6) | 446 (2.7) |
| Male | 3662 (43.7) | 156 | 3773 (45.0) | 152 (1.8) | 1780 (21.2) | 139 (1.7) | 250 (3.0) |
| Female | 5498 (65.7) | 124 | 2022 (24.1) | 60 (0.7) | 1509 (18.0) | 128 (1.5) | 196 (2.3) |
| Age group, years | |||||||
| 0–24 | 131 (68.6) | 7 | 38 (19.9) | 0 (0.0) | 31 (16.2) | 1 (0.5) | 6 (3.1) |
| 25–49 | 1105 (66.4) | 40 | 353 (21.2) | 12 (0.7) | 325 (19.5) | 23 (1.4) | 47 (2.8) |
| 50–64 | 2362 (57.8) | 60 | 1275 (31.2) | 44 (1.1) | 781 (19.1) | 77 (1.9) | 101 (2.5) |
| 65–74 | 2465 (51.1) | 52 | 1820 (37.7) | 66 (1.4) | 997 (20.7) | 73 (1.5) | 132 (2.7) |
| 75–84 | 2079 (50.3) | 83 | 1602 (38.8) | 67 (1.6) | 848 (20.5) | 78 (1.9) | 118 (2.9) |
| ≥85 | 1018 (54.5) | 38 | 707 (37.9) | 23 (1.2) | 307 (16.4) | 15 (0.8) | 42 (2.2) |
| Cancer site | |||||||
| Bladder | 208 (43.1) | 7 | 171 (35.4) | 61 (12.6) | 60 (12.4) | 4 (0.8) | 58 (12.0) |
| Brain | 192 (74.7) | 8 | 50 (19.5) | 4 (1.6) | 24 (9.3) | 1 (0.4) | 3 (1.2) |
| Breast | 2602 (96.8) | 26 | 53 (2.0) | 1 (0.0) | 50 (1.9) | 0 (0.0) | 7 (0.3) |
| Cancer of unknown primary | 190 (49.0) | 12 | 164 (42.3) | 0 (0.0) | 97 (25.0) | 6 (1.5) | 8 (2.1) |
| Colon | 624 (47.9) | 16 | 621 (47.6) | 7 (0.5) | 168 (12.9) | 52 (4.0) | 31 (2.4) |
| Endometrial | 247 (62.7) | 6 | 72 (18.3) | 3 (0.8) | 82 (20.8) | 4 (1.0) | 25 (6.3) |
| Leukaemia | 182 (40.0) | 15 | 266 (58.5) | 2 (0.4) | 36 (7.9) | 3 (0.7) | 2 (0.4) |
| Liver | 121 (44.8) | 2 | 122 (45.2) | 4 (1.5) | 80 (29.6) | 8 (3.0) | 2 (0.7) |
| Lung | 844 (40.1) | 29 | 602 (28.6) | 5 (0.2) | 1100 (52.3) | 16 (0.8) | 50 (2.4) |
| Lymphoma | 305 (42.4) | 19 | 324 (45.0) | 6 (0.8) | 247 (34.3) | 12 (1.7) | 16 (2.2) |
| Melanoma | 779 (94.3) | 10 | 9 (1.1) | 0 (0.0) | 7 (0.8) | 0 (0.0) | 37 (4.5) |
| Multiple myeloma | 89 (33.7) | 8 | 162 (61.4) | 1 (0.4) | 72 (27.3) | 4 (1.5) | 10 (3.8) |
| Oesophageal | 239 (54.4) | 8 | 162 (36.9) | 0 (0.0) | 55 (12.5) | 37 (8.4) | 10 (2.3) |
| Oral/oropharyngeal | 197 (75.8) | 8 | 49 (18.8) | 1 (0.4) | 27 (10.4) | 1 (0.4) | 5 (1.9) |
| Other | 839 (54.1) | 30 | 395 (25.5) | 15 (1.0) | 452 (29.1) | 26 (1.7) | 61 (3.9) |
| Ovarian | 100 (30.9) | 8 | 170 (52.5) | 6 (1.9) | 159 (49.1) | 4 (1.2) | 11 (3.4) |
| Pancreatic | 145 (32.2) | 10 | 267 (59.3) | 6 (1.3) | 166 (36.9) | 23 (5.1) | 9 (2.0) |
| Prostate | 503 (24.0) | 33 | 1555 (74.2) | 70 (3.3) | 166 (7.9) | 4 (0.2) | 44 (2.1) |
| Rectal | 360 (56.2) | 7 | 260 (40.6) | 2 (0.3) | 27 (4.2) | 28 (4.4) | 19 (3.0) |
| Renal | 262 (48.2) | 13 | 174 (32.0) | 17 (3.1) | 175 (32.2) | 5 (0.9) | 32 (5.9) |
| Stomach | 132 (43.6) | 5 | 147 (48.5) | 1 (0.3) | 39 (12.9) | 29 (9.6) | 6 (2.0) |
↵a Patients could have had >1 investigation. Each investigation group has been counted once, therefore multiple blood tests are counted as blood test x1.
↵b Number of investigations include not applicable and screening patients. Percentage values relate to observations with non-missing information (that is, excluding ‘not-known’). This is to prevent under-reporting of the proportion of the known categories by assuming that the not-known cases are missing at random and therefore evenly distributed among the known groups.