Emergency Presentation of Cancer Common in Older Adults

FRIDAY, July 24, 2026 (HealthDay News) — Emergency presentation (EP) for cancer diagnosis is common among older U.S. adults and predicts persistently elevated mortality, according to a study published online July 14 in the Journal of the National Cancer Institute.

Caroline A. Thompson, Ph.D., from University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, and colleagues estimated EP prevalence and associated mortality across cancer types in a national Medicare cohort. The analysis included 929,378 patients with 16 high-burden cancers diagnosed from 2008 to 2017.

The researchers found that 28 percent were EPs (22 percent inpatient, six percent outpatient). Prevalence of EP varied across cancer type from <10 percent for breast and prostate cancer to >40 percent for liver, lung, stomach, colon, ovarian, and pancreatic cancers. For non-EPs, one-year survival was 81 percent versus 60 percent for outpatient EPs and 36 percent for inpatient EPs. Inpatient EPs had nearly fourfold higher 30-day adjusted mortality than non-EPs (risk ratio [RR], 3.88; ranging from 2.1 for pancreatic cancer to 6.3 for lymphoma). Inpatient EPs with 90-day survival had 51 percent higher one-year mortality (RR ,1.51; ranging from 1.1 for pancreatic cancer to 2.1 for lymphoma). Intermediate risk was seen for outpatient EPs (one-year mortality RR, 1.28).

“These gaps held up even after we accounted for age, cancer stage, other illnesses, and frailty,” Thompson said in a statement. “How a cancer is found carries information about a patient’s outlook that goes beyond the tumor itself.”

One author disclosed financial ties to the biopharmaceutical industry.

Abstract/Full Text