Charlotte Buchanan

and 2 more

Objective To establish the endometrial cancer detection rate in women using hormone replacement therapy presenting with postmenopausal bleeding. Design Retrospective cohort study. Setting and Population Rapid access gynaecology clinic at a tertiary hospital. Women aged under 60 years referred with postmenopausal bleeding. Methods Retrospective study of referrals received between 1 January 2019 and 31 December 2020 including HRT use and histological diagnosis. Main Outcome Measures Histological diagnosis of endometrial cancer, borderline ovarian tumour or endometrial intraepithelial neoplasia. Results 1363 women were included. 214 women were using HRT when they experienced PMB and only one of these had endometrial cancer at histology (cancer detection rate 0.47%). 25 of the 1124 women who were not using HRT were diagnosed with endometrial cancer on histology (cancer detection rate 2.18%). Chi squared statistical analysis confirmed this was statistically significant (p value 0.0156). Conclusions The endometrial cancer detection rate in women aged under 60 years using HRT with PMB is very low. Referral on a two-week wait pathway for suspected cancer diagnosis induces stress and anxiety for the woman and may lead to more invasive initial investigation even though other diagnoses are far more likely. Women aged under 60 years with postmenopausal bleeding that have either commenced HRT or had a change to their preparation within the last 6 months should be seen on a less urgent referral pathway if necessary given the very low probability of endometrial cancer. Funding None obtained Keywords Endometrial cancer, hormone replacement therapy, postmenopausal bleeding

Tamara Khassan

and 7 more

Background Patients presenting with advanced ovarian cancer can be managed in a variety of ways. No clear selection algorithms exist to guide decision-making and there is significant geographical variation in practice. Decision-making takes place in specialist multidisciplinary team meetings (MDTs). We wanted to examine whether format and behaviour within these meetings could explain the geographical variation in treatment patterns seen in England Methods Observational study of five cancer centre MDTs over a six-week period. Data were recorded for overall MDT performance. The GO-MDT-MODe tool was used to provide a measure of participation and quality of case discussion for all cases of advanced ovarian cancer. MDT scores were correlated with surgical and survival data extracted from national audit data. Results A total of 870 case discussions, including 145 cases of advanced ovarian cancer, were observed. MDTs varied in structure, format and time allocation between centres. Cluster analysis showed significant variation in quality and participation of discussion between centres (p<0.0025) and this correlated with the proportion of patients in the wider cancer alliance undergoing surgery, but not with overall survival Conclusions We have shown that at least part of the variation in practice seen in the UK correlates with different behaviours within MDTs. Increasing time for discussion and encouraging participation from all staff groups may increase proportions of patients undergoing optimal treatment regimens.