AB014. 229. Urgent referrals to symptomatic breast clinics from primary care; diagnostic yield and referral patterns

Background: The number of GP referrals to the 8 symptomatic breast disease (SBD) units has significantly increased nationally without a corresponding increase in breast cancer cases. The aim of this study is to assess the diagnostic yield of urgent referrals to symptomatic breast clinic (SBC) at University Hospital Waterford (UHW) and the main factors affecting the GP urgent referral patterns.

Methods: A retrospective audit is performed to assess the outcome of the urgent referrals to the breast clinic. Breast service database is used to identify all the urgent referrals seen at the breast clinic between Jan–Dec 2017 by our 3 consultants. An online survey on SurveyMonkey was forwarded to all GPs in South East via email to assess the GPs referral patterns.

Results: A total of 1,605 urgent referrals were seen in the breast clinic at UHW during the study period, representing 58.6% of total referrals. The data collection is in progress. Preliminary results for 505 patients showed 58 cases (11.5%) diagnosed with cancer. Seven hundred and fifty-nine radiological imaging was performed (average 1.5 per patient). Forty-two biopsies were performed for benign lesions. The GP responses are being collected to be analysed.

Conclusions: Our preliminary results reflect a low diagnostic yield for urgent referrals to symptomatic breast clinic at UHW. The referral pathway to a symptomatic breast clinic is a complex interaction of clinical and non-clinical factors. The data from our survey will demonstrate any GP factors affecting the decision- making. The current study would yield valuable information about the referral patterns and eventual outcome for 1,605 patients referred urgently to the breast clinic at UHW during the specified period.

Keywords: Breast clinic; breast cancer; urgent referrals