Dataset Information

An evaluation of the impact of large-scale interventions to raise public awareness of a lung cancer symptom.

ABSTRACT:

Introduction

Long-term lung cancer survival in England has improved little in recent years and is worse than many countries. The Department of Health funded a campaign to raise public awareness of persistent cough as a lung cancer symptom and encourage people with the symptom to visit their GP. This was piloted regionally within England before a nationwide rollout.

Methods

To evaluate the campaign's impact, data were analysed for various metrics covering public awareness of symptoms and process measures, through to diagnosis, staging, treatment and 1-year survival (available for regional pilot only).

Results

Compared with the same time in the previous year, there were significant increases in metrics including: public awareness of persistent cough as a lung cancer symptom; urgent GP referrals for suspected lung cancer; and lung cancers diagnosed. Most encouragingly, there was a 3.1 percentage point increase (P<0.001) in proportion of non-small cell lung cancer diagnosed at stage I and a 2.3 percentage point increase (P<0.001) in resections for patients seen during the national campaign, with no evidence these proportions changed during the control period (P=0.404, 0.425).

Conclusions

To our knowledge, the data are the first to suggest a shift in stage distribution following an awareness campaign for lung cancer. It is possible a sustained increase in resections may lead to improved long-term survival.

SUBMITTER: Ironmonger L

PROVIDER: S-EPMC4453621 | biostudies-literature | 2015 Jan

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature

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Publications

An evaluation of the impact of large-scale interventions to raise public awareness of a lung cancer symptom.

Ironmonger L L Ohuma E E Ormiston-Smith N N Gildea C C Thomson C S CS Peake M D MD

British journal of cancer 20141202 1

<h4>Introduction</h4>Long-term lung cancer survival in England has improved little in recent years and is worse than many countries. The Department of Health funded a campaign to raise public awareness of persistent cough as a lung cancer symptom and encourage people with the symptom to visit their GP. This was piloted regionally within England before a nationwide rollout.<h4>Methods</h4>To evaluate the campaign's impact, data were analysed for various metrics covering public awareness of sympto ...[more]

PMID: 25461805

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Dataset Information

An evaluation of the impact of large-scale interventions to raise public awareness of a lung cancer symptom.

Introduction

Methods

Results

Conclusions

Publications

An evaluation of the impact of large-scale interventions to raise public awareness of a lung cancer symptom.

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