Table 2.

Prevalence of clinical-feature recordings in each pre-diagnostic period

	Cancer diagnosis				Total (N = 7549)
	Colon (n = 5033)		Rectal (n = 2516)
Variable	n	%	n	%	n	%
Clinical features
Abdominal pain
0–1 year	1305	25.9	271	10.8	1576	20.9
1–2 years	262	5.2	72	2.9	334	4.4
Change in bowel habit
0–1 year	1091	21.7	787	31.3	1878	24.9
1–2 years	236	4.7	117	4.7	353	4.7
Rectal bleeding
0–1 year	584	11.6	810	32.2	1394	18.5
1–2 years	82	1.6	63	2.5	145	1.9
Constitutional symptoms
0–1 year	436	8.7	123	4.9	559	7.4
1–2 years	170	3.4	47	1.9	217	2.9
Other bowel function
0–1 year	165	3.3	57	2.3	222	2.9
1–2 years	41	0.8	17	0.7	58	0.8
Abdominal mass
0–1 year	83	1.6	21	0.8	104	1.4
1–2 years	7	0.1	5	0.2	12	0.2
Abnormal blood tests
Low haemoglobin
0–1 year	1417	28.2	231	9.2	1648	21.8
1–2 years	213	4.2	55	2.2	268	3.6
High inflammatory markers
0–1 year	1392	27.7	463	18.4	1855	24.6
1–2 years	367	7.3	127	5.0	494	6.5
High platelets
0–1 year	932	18.5	244	9.7	1176	15.6
1–2 years	142	2.8	52	2.1	194	2.6

^a Abdominal mass includes codes for abdominal and rectal or perianal masses.