Abstract
BACKGROUND: Routine laboratory tests are almost universally ordered for patients investigated for possible cancer, yet it is still unclear how far these everyday measurements can help to separate malignant from non-malignant disease once a patient has reached specialist care. OBJECTIVE: To describe the relationship between cancer diagnosis (cancer vs no cancer) and a set of simple demographic, hematological, biochemical, and clinical variables, and to examine whether any of these measures show a meaningful association with cancer status in a referred population. METHODS: We carried out an analytical cross-sectional study of 1,000 individuals drawn from the Cancer Risk Stratification Using Lab Parameters dataset. Age, sex, smoking, family history, full blood count indices, blood glucose, CA-125, PSA, CEA, risk category, cancer stage, treatment outcome, and survival were retrieved. Cancer status (cancer vs no cancer) was the main outcome. Descriptive statistics were combined with χ² tests, independent t-tests, one-way ANOVA, and Pearson's correlations. RESULTS: Cancer was present in just over four-fifths of the cohort. Most routine blood and chemistry values lay within conventional reference limits, and for almost all variables there were no statistically significant differences between cancer and non-cancer groups. Hemoglobin was modestly but significantly lower in patients with cancer. Cancer status was strongly related to stage, and showed a weaker association with survival. CONCLUSION: In this cancer-enriched referral population, single routine laboratory measures and basic demographic factors added little to the simple knowledge of whether a patient had been staged as having cancer. Hemoglobin behaved as a non-specific marker of disease burden rather than a diagnostic test.