Women’s Urinary Symptoms May Mask Cancer

Women’s Urinary Symptoms May Mask Cancer

Primary care physicians are more likely to view the first symptoms associated with urinary and kidney cancers in women — as opposed to men — to mild conditions, such as bacterial infections, according to a new study conducted in the United Kingdom.

Researchers found that women with urinary tract cancers were around twice as likely as men to have visited their general practitioner 3 or more times before they were referred to a specialist.

Specifically, more women than men made 3 or more visits before referral for bladder cancer (27% vs 10%) or kidney cancer (30% vs 18%), report the study authors, led by Georgios Lyratzopoulos, MD, from the Department of Public Health and Primary Care at the University of Cambridge in United Kingdom.

“The findings indicate that generalists are less likely to suspect the diagnosis of urinary tract cancers in women,” write the authors.

The findings from this study, published online June 24, 2013 in BMJ Open, offer “compelling evidence” of gender-based delays in the diagnosis of these cancers, and “amplify previous limited evidence” on gender inequalities in the diagnosis of urinary tract cancers in both England and the United States, the authors write.

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via Blogger http://chiropractic-lane.blogspot.com/2013/06/womens-urinary-symptoms-may-mask-cancer.html