Many Canadians end up in ER before being diagnosed with cancer: study
cancer patients in Canada seek emergency help before their diagnosis, with more than half being hospitalized following an ER visit, according to new research.A study published in the Canadian Medical Association Journal (CMAJ) on Monday showed that more than a third of cancer patients in Ontario had visited an emergency department in the three months prior to their cancer diagnosis.“This study highlights how frequently patients with cancer are using the emergency department during the diagnostic phase of their cancer journey,” said Dr. Keerat Grewal, study co-author and an emergency medicine physician at Mount Sinai Hospital in Toronto.“It’s almost one in three patients who are using the emergency department prior to their diagnosis and there are certain patient populations who are more likely to use the emergency department,” she told Global News in an interview.The study included more than 650,000 patients who were first diagnosed with cancer between 2014 and 2021 in Ontario.Even though the data was limited to Ontario, Grewal said it’s a trend that’s being seen across Canada.The CMAJ study showed that among the patients with emergency department visits 90 days before a cancer diagnosis, 64 per cent visited an ER once, 23 per cent visited twice and 13 per cent had three or more visits.
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