Download Kirubakaran Balasubramaniam, MD Gynecological cancer

Kirubakaran Balasubramaniam, MD
Gynecological cancer alarm symptoms in a general population – prevalence, determinants and
consequences
Cancer related mortality in Denmark is among the highest in developed countries. This includes the mortality
of the gynecological cancer diseases. At the same time Danish cancer patients are often diagnosed with late
stage disease compared to other countries, which may contribute to the high mortality. To counter these
challenges, a number of cancer packages have been implemented, in order to facilitate a faster diagnostic
pathway for patients suspected to have cancer. These packages are based on so called cancer alarm
symptoms, which are symptoms that are commonly associated with cancer diseases. Our knowledge on
these symptoms is primarily based on reports from patients already diagnosed with cancer. In other words,
our knowledge about the frequency of these symptoms in a general population and their value in predicting
cancer disease is sparse.
Recent works have shown that a number of cancer alarm symptoms are quite common in a general
population. For an instance 6 % of the population has experienced blood in the stool within the last year.
Similar works concerning the gynecological cancers are not present. We also lack knowledge about how
socioeconomic status and lifestyle influence on these symptoms. In other words both the frequency of these
symptoms and factors influencing the symptoms need to be investigated. Furthermore it is of great
importance to clarify the association between symptoms and disease.
To contribute with knowledge in this field this investigation is currently being done. It is conducted as an
internet based questionnaire, in which 51.090 randomly selected women are invited to participate. The
questionnaire is designed to illuminate numerous symptoms, the duration of these, lifestyle factors, behavior
regarding doctor seeking etc. The collected answers will be linked to information from registers such as
Statistics Denmark and hospital registers. With this it will be possible to gain a nuanced depiction of the
prevalence and importance of these symptoms, but also an understanding of the association between
symptoms and development of cancer diseases.
Primary supervisor: Dorte Ejg Jarbøl, Ass. Professor, General Practitioner, PhD.
University of Southern Denmark
Co-supervisors:
Jens Søndergaard, Professor, General Practitioner, Clinical Pharmacologist, PhD,
University of Southern Denmark
Pernille Ravn, Senior Consultant, Ass. Professor, DMSci.