Table 1.

Cancer diagnoses in 2016 and 2015 cohorts. ‘All colorectal cancers’ includes all-stage cancer diagnoses. In 2016 and 2015, the sites of non-colorectal cancers were: anus, ovary, pancreas, haematological and lung. In 2016, the following additional cancers were found: oesophagus, parotid gland, prostate, perianal skin, breast, stomach and metastatic disease of unknown origin. In 2015, a non-colorectal neuroendocrine tumour was also diagnosed. The Dukes’ staging of colorectal cancers was not significantly different in 2016 relative to 2015 (chi-squared test, excluding cases with unknown staging). An increased proportion of cancer diagnoses were non-colorectal in 2016 relative to 2015 (chi-squared test, P < 0.01). Brackets represent percentage of all referrals for that year, except for Dukes’ staging, which represents the percentage of colorectal cancer with full staging information available. The numbers of patients who underwent adenoma resection, as part of the two-week-wait pathway for suspected lower gastrointestinal cancer, classified into low-, intermediate- and high-risk categories as defined by Atkin et al,¹⁶ are presented. No significant difference was observed between the proportion of patient risk categories in the two cohorts as assessed by chi-squared test.

	Cohort
	2015	2016
Total referrals	664	954
Cancer diagnoses	64 (9.6%)	58 (6.1%)
Colorectal cancer:
All	53 (8.0%)	36 (3.8%)
Dukes’ A or B	25 (47.2%)	11 (33.3%)
Dukes’ C or D	28 (52.8%)	22 (66.7%)
Unknown stage	0	3
Non-colorectal cancers	11 (1.7%)	22 (2.3%)
Adenoma:
Low-risk	91 (67.9%)	161 (69.7%)
Intermediate risk	33 (24.6%)	49 (21.2%)
High risk	10 (7.5%)	21 (9.1%)
Total	134	231