How significant is abdominal pain when diagnosing intra-abdominal cancers?

In this episode we talk to Dr Sarah Price who is a research fellow at the University of Exeter Medical School. Paper: Intra-abdominal cancer risk with abdominal pain: a prospective cohort primary care study https://doi.org/10.3399/BJGP.2021.0552 (https://doi.org/10.3399/BJGP.2021.0552) Abdominal pain is a non-specific symptom, which may portend serious disease, including intra-abdominal cancers. There is no unified pathway for investigation. This paper reports the 1-year cumulative incidence risk of intra-abdominal cancer with or without concurrent clinical features for men and women aged 40–59, 60–69 and ≥70 years. Results show that patient demographics and type of concurrent feature effects the cancer risk. These results will inform appropriate testing strategies and specialist referral.