Straight-to-test for the two-week-wait colorectal cancer pathway under the updated NICE guidelines reduces time to cancer diagnosis and treatment

摘要

The 2015 National Institute for Health and Care Excellence guidelines widened the referral criteria for the two-week-wait pathway for suspected lower gastrointestinal cancer. We implemented a straight-to-test protocol to accommodate the anticipated increase in referrals. We evaluated the impact of these changes for relevant pathway metrics and clinical outcomes using a retrospective cohort study with historic controls.