The "Guidelines for Urgent Referral of Patients with Suspected Cancer" provides indications for Urgent 2 week referrals for certain cancers. Our Urologists are a bit twitchy about one of them. One of the guidelines for urgent 2 week referral for "Urological Cancers" is "An elevated age-specific PSA in men with a ten year life expectancy". It states that "the age specific upper limit of normal for PSA rises from 2.8 aged 50 up to 5.3 aged 70".
These guidelines should be in place by December 2000.
I am happy to introduce them, but its not my waiting list! The urologists seem to think that not many labs will use age-related reference ranges. I begged to differ but they asked me to post this mailbase to get a feeling of what the norm will be.
ref: http://nww.doh.nhsweb.nhs.uk/cancer- Referral Guidelines
Martin Myers
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