Table 4.

Risk factors for emergency cancer presentation (number of studies)

Risk factor	Colorectal cancer												Lung cancer
Demographic
Age (older)	●	●	●	●	●	●	●	●	●	⊙	○	○	●	●	●	○
Gender (female)	●	●	●	●	●	○	○	○	○	○			●	●	●
Deprivation (higher)	●	●	●	○	○								●	●	●
Annual income—household, individual (lower)	●	●	○	○									○
Ethnicity (non-white origin)	●	○	○										●	⊙
Enrolment in health insurance	●	●											○
Marital status (unmarried, divorced, widowed)	●	●	○
Education level (lower)	●	○
Social class (lower)	○
Residence (ownership, location)	○
Childlessness	●
History
Cancer site (colon)	●	●	⊙	⊙	○
Symptom type	●	●	●	⊙	⊙								●
Symptom type (pain)	●	●	⊙
Symptom type (weight loss)	●	●
Symptom type (obstruction)	●	⊙
Symptom type (change in bowel habit)	●	⊙
Symptom type (bleeding)	○
Help-seeking at initial symptom	●	○
Comorbidity	●	●	○	○									●	○
Performance status (poorer)													●
Smoking history	○
BMI (extreme)	●
Primary care utilisation (lower)	●	●											●
Secondary care utilisation (higher)	●	○											●
Previous screening/investigation	●	○
Family history of cancer	○	○

● Study reports association with EP (evidence rated as ‘strong’, ‘strong−’ or ‘moderate’); ⊙ study reports association with EP (evidence rated as ‘insufficient’); ○ study reports no association with EP.

BMI, body mass index; EP, emergency presentation.