Over 60s who lose weight ‘should get cancer tests’
WEIGHT loss in patients over the age of 60 should be urgently investigated, with one in seven cases among men likely to mean cancer, a study has found.
The research by Oxford University found that losing weight was the key symptom of the disease, linked to at least 10 types of cancer.
Experts called on GPS to refer patients with unexplained weight loss for urgent tests.
Britain’s survival rates are lagging behind many comparative countries, with the nation falling in the bottom half of international league tables for seven major forms of the disease.
Unexplained weight loss has long been associated with cancer, but today’s research, involving more than 11million patients, is the first major study to quantify the association. Overall it found that among those over 60, men with unintended weight loss had a 14.2 per cent risk of cancer, with a 6.7 per cent risk found among women of the same age.
Experts said the higher rate among men was found because weight loss was closely linked to prostate cancer, the most common cancer in men.
Dr Brian Nicholson, of Oxford University, the lead author of the study, said GPS needed to be able to refer patients to centres which could check for several cancers at once, in order to make the right diagnosis quickly.
Last week health officials announced plans to test such an approach in 10 parts of the country. Dr Nicholson said: “Streamlined services that allow GPS to investigate non-specific symptoms like weight loss are vitally important and urgently needed if we are to catch cancer earlier and save lives.”
He said that more research was needed to establish the amount of weight loss which constituted grounds for concern. A team led by the universities of Oxford and Exeter examined 25 studies, involving 11.5 million patients. Their study, funded by the National Institute for Health Research and published in the British Journal of General Practice, found that unintended weight loss was the second highest risk factor for colorectal, lung, pancreatic and renal cancers.
The only symptoms found to be more common were those linked to specific cancers, such as rectal bleeding for bowel cancer and jaundice for pancreatic disease.