DOCTORS should send patients aged over 60 for cancer screening tests if they have unintentionally lost weight , according to new research by an Oxfordshire GP.

The study, led by Dr Brian Nicholson, found that such patients could have a three per cent or greater chance of having one of 10 cancers.

The findings come one week after Oxford’s Churchill Hospital was named as one of 10 new ‘one-stop shops’ where patients displaying ‘vague symptoms’ will undergo a number of tests to speed up cancer diagnosis.

For the study teams at the Universities of Oxford and Exeter examined all available evidence on the association between weight loss and cancer in primary care.

Oxfordshire GP and Clinical Researcher in Oxford University’s Nuffield Department of Primary Care Health Sciences Dr Nicholson, was lead author on the paper.

He said: “Streamlined services that allow GPs to investigate non-specific symptoms like weight loss are vitally important and urgently needed if we are to catch cancer earlier and save lives.

“Our research indicates that coordinated investigation across multiple body sites could help to speed up cancer diagnosis in patients with weight loss.

“We now need to continue our research to understand the most appropriate combination of tests and to give guidance on how much weight loss GPs and patients should worry about.”

Their study, which incorporated data from 11.5million patients, was funded by the National Institute for Health Research and published in the British Journal of General Practice, found that unintended weight loss is the second highest risk factor for colorectal, lung, pancreatic and renal cancers.