OA: An investigation of routes to cancer diagnosis in 10 international jurisdictions, as part of the International Cancer Benchmarking Partnership....

open access: 
An investigation of routes to cancer diagnosis in 10 international jurisdictions, as part of the International Cancer Benchmarking Partnership: survey development and implementation

 Expected recruitment rates are lowest for ovarian cancer, and in Sweden ovarian cancer is not included.

 ICBP Module 2 demonstrated that awareness and beliefs about cancer are unlikely to explain international survival differences but may form part of a more complex picture.5 ↵

5. Differences in cancer awareness and beliefs between Australia, Canada, Denmark, Norway, Sweden and the UK (the International Cancer Benchmarking Partnership): do they contribute to differences in cancer survival? Br J Cancer

Background

The International Cancer Benchmarking Partnership (ICBP) is a major international collaboration which is exploring differences in cancer survival between Australia, Canada, Denmark, Norway, Sweden and the UK.1 It has already demonstrated significant differences in 1-year and 5-year relative survival for breast, lung, colorectal and ovarian cancers among participating jurisdictions.2...

  In common with other ICBP modules,2 four cancers are included—breast, ovarian, colorectal and lung cancer. There is variation among these cancers in terms of their symptom characteristics, availability of screening, treatments and effects of other factors like age and comorbidity. For a given period in each jurisdiction, newly diagnosed patients with cancer were identified and a questionnaire was sent to the patient, the PCP and the diagnosing/treating hospital. The questionnaire focused particularly on specific milestones, time intervals and the routes to diagnosis. The study was initiated in 2009 and the data collection launched in 2013. Data collection finished in early 2016.

(breast/colorectal/lung/ovarian) - country/#patients/PCP):
Supplementary File 6: Crude figures for jurisdictions (as of February 2016) #

 Discussion

ICBPM4 is the first attempt we are aware of to describe and compare, between countries, patient journeys to a cancer diagnosis and treatment. While there has been some preliminary work examining the logistics of such comparisons,43 ,44 there are no previous examples of applying standardised survey methods in a broad range of international jurisdictions to systematically examine the various components of diagnostic intervals. It is a complex exercise with a broad range of methodological challenges; nevertheless, it has the potential to highlight important differences in diagnostic routes and these may contribute to an understanding of variations in cancer survival.

Conclusion

An international questionnaire-based survey (ICBPM4) of patients, PCPs and hospital specialists has been developed and launched in 10 international jurisdictions. In this paper, we have reported on key aspects of survey design, questionnaire development and testing and initial response rates.....