Information

Scottish Parliament election: 7 May. This site won't be routinely updated during the pre-election period.

Scottish Referral Guidelines for Suspected Cancer 2025

The Scottish Referral Guidelines (SRGs) for Suspected Cancer support primary care clinicians in identifying patients who are most likely to have cancer and therefore require urgent assessment by a specialist.


Appendix 7 – References

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5. Public Health Scotland (2023). Cancer Staging Data, https://publichealthscotland.scot/publications/cancer-staging-data/2022-cancer-staging-data-28-november-2023/

6. University of Glasgow and University of Edinburgh (2023) Tackling the Inverse Care Law in Scottish General Practice. https://www.health.org.uk/reports-and-analysis/reports/tackling-the-inverse-care-law-in-scottish-general-practice

7. Lloyd, T., Hounsome, L., Mehay, A., Mee, S., Verne, J., & Cooper, A. (2015). Lifetime risk of being diagnosed with, or dying from, prostate cancer by major ethnic group in England 2008-2010. BMC medicine, 13, 171. https://doi.org/10.1186/s12916-015-0405-5

8. Moore SF, Price SJ, Chowienczyk S, Bostock J, Hamilton W. (2021) The impact of changing risk thresholds on the number of people in England eligible for urgent investigation for possible cancer: an observational cross-sectional study. Br J Cancer.125(11):1593-7. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41416-021-01541-4

9. Moore, S.F., Price, S.J., Bostock, J., Neal, R.D. and Hamilton, W. (2023). Incidence of ‘Low-Risk but Not No-Risk’ Features of Cancer Prior to High-Risk Feature Occurrence: An Observational Cohort Study in Primary Care. Cancers 15(15), p.3936. https://doi.org/10.3390/cancers15153936

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12. Smith, C. F., Drew, S., Ziebland, S., & Nicholson, B. D. (2020). Understanding the role of GPs’ gut feelings in diagnosing cancer in primary care: a systematic review and meta-analysis of existing evidence. The British journal of general practice: the journal of the Royal College of General Practitioners, 70(698), e612–e621. https://doi.org/10.3399/bjgp20X712301

13. Donker, G. A., Wiersma, E., van der Hoek, L., & Heins, M. (2016). Determinants of general practitioner’s cancer-related gut feelings-a prospective cohort study. BMJ open, 6(9), e012511. https://doi.org/10.1136/bmjopen-2016-012511

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15. Nicholson, B. D., Thompson, M. J., Hobbs, F. D., Nguyen, M., McLellan, J., Green, B., Chubak, J., and Oke, J. L. (2022) Measured weight loss as a precursor to cancer diagnosis: retrospective cohort analysis of 43,302 primary care patients, Journal of Cachexia, Sarcopenia and Muscle, 13, 2492–2503, https://doi.org/10.1002/jcsm.13051

16. Price, S. J., Gibson, N., Hamilton, W. T., King, A., & Shephard, E. A. (2022). Intra-abdominal cancer risk with abdominal pain: a prospective cohort primary care study. The British journal of general practice: the journal of the Royal College of General Practitioners, 72(718), e361–e368. https://doi.org/10.3399/BJGP.2021.0552

17. Bailey, S. E., Ukoumunne, O. C., Shephard, E. A., & Hamilton, W. (2017). Clinical relevance of thrombocytosis in primary care: a prospective cohort study of cancer incidence using English electronic medical records and cancer registry data. The British journal of general practice: the journal of the Royal College of General Practitioners, 67(659), e405–e413. https://doi.org/10.3399/bjgp17X691109

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21. Scott, S. E., Penfold, C., Saji, S., Curtis, S., Watts, C., Hamilton, W., Joannides, A. J., & Walter, F. M. (2019). ‘It was nothing that you would think was anything’: Qualitative analysis of appraisal and help seeking preceding brain cancer diagnosis. PloS one, 14(3), e0213599. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0213599

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93. Referral guidance for suspected cancer in children and young people. Available at: Guidelines | CCLG - The Children & Young People’s Cancer Association

94. Osteosarcoma - Symptoms, diagnosis and treatment | BMJ Best Practice, Accessed February 2025 https://bestpractice.bmj.com/topics/en-gb/780

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Email: cfsdcancerandedteam@nhs.scot

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