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Patients with cancer alarm symptoms commonly present in pharmacies, delegates to last month’s Royal Pharmaceutical Society annual conference were told.

Between September and November 2013, patients visiting 32 community pharmacies in the North of England reported 257 alarm symptoms. Most of the patients were white British, more than 60 per cent were female and they were typically aged 55-64 years.

Cough lasting longer than three weeks was the commonest alarm symptom (112 cases) but others included: indigestion lasting longer than three weeks or unrelieved by OTC medicines (52 cases); blood in stools or diarrhoea lasting longer than three weeks (21 cases); haematuria (19 cases); rectal bleeding (13 cases); unintentional weight loss (12 cases); dysphagia (11 cases); haemophysis (nine cases); and breast lump (eight cases).

The study suggests that patients with alarm symptoms often present to community pharmacists for advice, symptomatic management or both. There is “potential to develop an intervention to promote early cancer detection – with a possible focus on lung cancer – in community pharmacy,” the authors comment. (Int J Pharmacy Pract 2014, Supplement 2:32)