Can cancer be diagnosed sooner?

This is what a series of projects run through the ACE programme, an NHS England early diagnosis initiative supported by Cancer Research UK and Macmillan Cancer Support, are trying to find out.

The focus is on an approach called direct access where the patient is referred by their GP straight to the appropriate diagnostic test, reducing the waiting time between the initial GP visit and the diagnosis, in some cases. You can read more about this story on our Science blog here.

I hope you’ll enjoy reading it as much as I did and would love to hear your thoughts on how this could impact cancer diagnosis.

Best wishes,

Renata

  • Thank you for posting this. I am particularly interested as my disabled brother did not have his testicular cancer found in time because it took so long for the crazy system in place for vulnerable people like this amazing man to even access tests. His gp twice put him on antibiotics and because of his severe mental disability he had to be referred for a best interests meeting at the hospital which was pretty much mostly a waste of time due to the total lack of understanding from the person we originally met with, he (my brother) was not able to attend hospital like other people so could not come to the meeting or appointments, they did attempt an ultrasound under some sedation but as we had predicted, he still could not cope with it and a month later they had to bring him back under more sedation and a general anaesthetic to remove the testicle and diagnose the cancer (which we then found out another month later had spread (he again had to be sedated and have a general anaesthetic to have the ct scan and blood tests) so from when the large swelling was noticed in March 2014 by carers to diagnosis of it being cancer and having spread in February 2015, I would like to know what if anything will be changed for people like my brother