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Diagnosing cancer: changing patterns of care
Author(s) -
Lim E.,
Rosenthal M. A
Publication year - 2007
Publication title -
internal medicine journal
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.596
H-Index - 70
eISSN - 1445-5994
pISSN - 1444-0903
DOI - 10.1111/j.1445-5994.2007.01246.x
Subject(s) - medicine , referral , multidisciplinary approach , cancer , biopsy , intensive care medicine , emergency medicine , general surgery , family medicine , social science , sociology
We prospectively assessed 100 consecutive inpatient referrals made to the Medical Oncology Unit. The major end‐point was the time to diagnostic biopsy. Referral trends and treatment outcomes were also recorded. Our results show that the referring units undertook the diagnostic process in the vast majority and the time to inpatient diagnostic biopsy has fallen from 10 to 4.6 days, compared with a similar study 13 years ago. This emphasizes the changing role of the oncologist in current day multidisciplinary cancer care.