The time taken to diagnose some common cancers, from the point when a patient first reports a possible symptom to their GP, has fallen in adults by an average of five days.
Researchers, based at the Universities of Bangor, Exeter and Durham, found that the average time it took to be diagnosed for a range of common cancers combined fell from 125 days in 2001/2002 to 120 days in 2007/2008.
Overall, there was a reduction in the time taken from first presentation to diagnosis for 15 cancers.
For kidney, head and neck, and bladder cancers, more than two weeks were taken off the time between first reporting a possible symptom and receiving a diagnosis.
The researchers suggest that the improvement may be thanks to the 2005 publication of National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) guidelines for urgent referral of suspected cancer. The guidelines give GPs advice about symptoms which might indicate cancer and mean the patient should be urgently referred for further testing.
Patients whose symptoms were prioritised by the NICE guidelines took less time to be diagnosed, and breast and testicular cancers were diagnosed in the shortest time – on average around two months between first reported symptom and diagnosis.
