Percurso do diagnóstico de malignidades

ICancer is responsible for approximately 9.6 million annual deaths worldwide, hematological malignancies occupy more than 7% of this total. Diagnosing them is a complex job and part of the failure in chemotherapy is due to late treatment. This work proposes a reflection on the importance of shortening the process of diagnosis of neoplasms and its impact on the prognosis / treatment. Studies that analyzed the time from the first symptoms to the diagnosis of patients with some malignancy, especially hematological, were analyzed. The review was carried Scielo and PubMed databases (interval 2015-2019). Research on the same theme was also carried out at Hospital Universitário Antônio Pedro, using a questionnaire applied to patients who attended the chemotherapy outpatient clinic. 276 publications were identified in PubMed and 44 in Scielo and 7 articles were selected, only one addressed hematological malignancies. The results for the questionnaire include 39 patients (71.80% women; 28.20% men) have been included, among which, patients with hematological neoplasms represent 41.02%. The search for medical care after the onset of symptoms was made by 48.72%, 38.46% had an advanced diagnosis. The initial service with the greatest demand was the Basic Health Unit (51.29%). The most reported symptoms were pain and tiredness (41.00%). The average age was 55 years. Both the literature review and the research at HUAP showed a significant delay in the search for diagnosis, consequently, treatment, which can result in an unsatisfactory response and may evolve to death.