Does the Primary Care Experience Influence the Cancer Diagnostic Process?

Table 4

Elapsed times (median; in days) in cancer diagnosis.

	All patients	Patients with breast cancer	Patients with lung cancer	Patients with colorectal cancer	Difference between cancer sites
	()	()	()	()	value
Symptoms-to-investigation time	47	41	40	64	0.143
Time between first; symptoms and making; appointment^1	21	18	16	30	0.749
Time between making; appointment and start of; investigation^1	11	10	9	12	0.593
Investigation-to-diagnosis time	32	46	29	24	0.092

Times between first symptoms and making appointment for these symptoms and between making appointment for the first symptoms and start of investigation could not be calculated in 28% of cases, because of the large amount of missing data for the date when the first appointment was made after noticing symptoms (24%).
Median test.