Challenges in diagnosing head and neck cancer in primary health care.

Conclusions: Despite the low incidence of HNC and the large number of patients presenting with HNC-related symptoms, GPs working in PHC sort out potential HNC patients from the general patient group in most cases remarkably effectively. Key messages:For every head and neck cancer patient encountered in the primary health care, a general practitioner will meet approximately 6000 other patients, 100 of whom exhibit a sign or a symptom potentially caused by a head and neck cancer.Despite the low incidence of head and neck cancer, general practitioners referred patients to specialistcare effectively, limiting the median delay from the initial appointment to referral toonly five days. PMID: 32746635 [PubMed - as supplied by publisher]
Source: Annals of Medicine - Category: Internal Medicine Tags: Ann Med Source Type: research