ArticleBMJ open2025
Primary care patients presenting with unexpected weight loss in Australian general practices: replication of a diagnostic accuracy study.
Article in BMJ open, 2025. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 3 papers.
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Who cites it
3 citing papers in PubMed.
- The Prevalence and Risk Factors for at-Risk MASH and Advanced Liver Fibrosis in People With Metabolic Risk Factors in Primary Care.Alimentary pharmacology & therapeutics · 2026Article
- Piloting a Clinical Decision Support System for Unintended Weight Loss in Primary Care: Mixed Methods Study on Early Cancer Detection.JMIR cancer · 2026Article
- Evaluating a Clinical Decision Support Tool for Cancer Risk Assessment in Primary Care: Simulation Study of Unintended Weight Loss.JMIR formative research · 2025Article
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Authors and funding
16 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
objectiveWe calculate positive predictive values (PPVs) of patients presenting with unexpected weight loss (UWL) being diagnosed with cancer within 6 months, using data from a population of Australian primary care patients to replicate results from a previous UK study.
designA diagnostic accuracy study involving calculation of the PPV for any cancer using retrospective data from routinely collected electronic healthcare records. The index date is defined as the first recorded UWL presentation and the reference standard is cancer diagnosis within 6 months of the index date.
settingThis study uses primary care data from the Patron primary care database, linked to hospital admissions data and the Victorian Cancer Registry. We include only patients who presented to their General Practitioners (GPs) at least once between 1 July 2007 and 1 February 2022. PARTICIPANT: Patients were included if they were at least 18 years of age at the index date, had no previous diagnosis of cancer or previous weight loss intervention, including being prescribed medications for weight loss. 13 306 patients out of a primary care population of 1 791 051 patients were identified that met the eligibility criteria.
resultsWhen stratified by age, sex and smoking status, we found PPVs lower than those derived in a previous UK primary care study, though still above 3% for male non-smokers over 60, female smokers over 70 and all males over 70. Patients from ages 60-79 with at least one abnormal blood test result had PPVs consistently above 3%, while overall, patients with abnormal blood test results have PPVs of up to 35%.
conclusionWe confirmed that many PPVs, while consistently below those derived in the UK study, are above clinically significant thresholds and increasing with age and the number of different abnormal blood test results.
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