{"entity":{"id":"idea-prev-emergency-department-cancer-test","kind":"idea","name":"A cancer blood test for older people arriving at A&E with unexplained symptoms","aka":[],"tldr":"One in five cancers in the UK is first found in an emergency, usually late. Adding a cancer test to the blood already taken in A&E for over-60s with vague symptoms could catch some earlier.","summary":"Emergency presentation carries much worse survival, and these patients often attended A&E months earlier with non-specific complaints. Propose adding an MCED or targeted marker panel to blood drawn in emergency departments for patients aged 60 and over with weight loss, anaemia, or non-specific pain, with a defined follow-up route.","asOf":"2026-09-08","links":[{"label":"Bottleneck evidence (The hardest cancers are found late): Crosby et al., Early detection of cancer (Science 2022)","url":"https://doi.org/10.1126/science.aay9040"}],"tags":[],"related":[],"cancers":[],"sections":["early-detection"],"technologies":["mced"],"targets":[],"drugs":[],"companies":[],"institutions":[],"pathways":[],"terms":[],"trials":[],"people":[],"bottlenecks":["b-early-detection","b-care-fragmentation"],"keyPapers":["paper-crosby-science"],"journals":[],"dependsOn":[],"notes":[],"hypothesis":"Emergency department add-on testing detects cancer in at least 3% of tested patients, with at least half at stage I-III, and reduces subsequent emergency-route diagnoses in the tested population.","rationale":"Emergency-department patients have high pre-test probability and are already having blood drawn; the missed opportunity is documented in linked-data studies.","test":"Pilot in three emergency departments, 5,000 tests, registry-linked outcomes.","maturity":"speculative","actor":"clinic","cost":"medium","horizonYears":3},"route":"/ideas/idea-prev-emergency-department-cancer-test/","neighbours":{"section":[{"id":"early-detection","kind":"section","name":"Early Detection & Screening","route":"/fronts/early-detection/"}],"technology":[{"id":"mced","kind":"technology","name":"Multi-cancer early detection (MCED)","route":"/technologies/mced/"}],"bottleneck":[{"id":"b-care-fragmentation","kind":"bottleneck","name":"Fragmented care and guideline gaps","route":"/bottlenecks/b-care-fragmentation/"},{"id":"b-early-detection","kind":"bottleneck","name":"The hardest cancers are found late","route":"/bottlenecks/b-early-detection/"}],"paper":[{"id":"paper-crosby-science","kind":"paper","name":"Early detection of cancer","route":"/key-papers/paper-crosby-science/"}]}}