Bad practice in Scotland may have cost lives in cancer battle.(Brief Article)

2002 JUL 4 - (NewsRx.com & NewsRx.net) -- Failure to follow routine procedures recording the spread of cancer may have cost lives, a Scottish survey revealed June 11, 2002.

Surgeons operating on women with endometrial cancer failed to follow the recognized guidelines in assessing how far the disease had progressed in two-thirds of Scottish cases studied according to a report published in the British Journal of Cancer.

Death rates were significantly higher where guidelines were not followed.

The process known as "staging" is vital to enable correct recommendations to be made for the most suitable treatment, which will depend on how far the cancer has spread.

The study was based on more than 700 Scottish women with endometrial cancer who were diagnosed between 1996 and 1997. The recognized "staging" procedure was not followed in 446 patients.

Of these, one in five women subsequently died from the disease. Where the proper guidelines were followed in the remaining patients the death rate dropped to one in eight.

The report said that the basic staging procedures are not technically difficult. Sending fluids for cytological examination "requires no particular skill, only to remember that they should be taken and a belief that it is worthwhile," the report said.