The Interface Between Colon Cancer and Mental Health Morbidities

Abstract

In this landmark study by Benitez Majano et al, 1 the authors use linked primary care data to study pathways to diagnosis and diagnostic delay and the association with mental health conditions. Unsurprisingly, patients with a coexistent mental health diagnosis experienced diagnostic delay.However, the delay was not merely a statistical delay of little clinical significance. The authors concluded that diagnostic delays were "prognostically consequential," in other words, delays that were likely to be associated with reduced 5-year and 10-year cancer survival rates.What is more surprising is that a study of this type has not been previously conducted, even though in the everyday experience of primary care physicians, mental health symptoms so commonly coexist with symptoms that may be an early warning signal associated with cancer or explicit red-flag symptoms. Disentangling this web of symptoms and determining when to consider diagnostic testing and referral is a continually challenging task of primary care. This research and this