Background: Cancer diagnoses are relatively uncommon and difficult in primary care, despite being a frequently identified condition for diagnostic delay. Diagnostic delay and errors are associated with serious harm in primary care. They are commonly associated with the failure to follow-up abnormal test results.
Aims: The aims of this study are to measure and quantify the frequency of abnormal pathology test results associated with undiagnosed prevalent cancer and their follow-up in Australia primary care.
Methods: We will be conducting a retrospective study which will involve secondary analysis of the Australian National Prescribing Service (NPS) MedicineInsight 2007-2017 dataset, a longitudinal, de-identified primary care dataset. Key components of the dataset that we will explore include pathology test results, reasons for patient visits or encounter and prescriptions. We will measure the prevalence of abnormal test results associated with undiagnosed prevalent cancer to determine how common the abnormalities are, the time-period for the follow-up of abnormal results, and the actions taken to follow-up these abnormal test results.
Results: The NPS MedicineInsight dataset contains over 90 million unique pathology test results. Data analysis is currently in progress. Preliminary results will be presented at the 2019 COSA Annual Scientific Meeting.
Conclusions: As far as we know this will be the first study to quantify the prevalence of abnormal test results and their follow-up in Australian primary care. Findings from this study will inform and contribute to further research, practice and policy aimed at improving the management of abnormal test results and early cancer diagnosis in primary care.