Today, we’re speaking to Dr Afrodita Marcu, a Research Fellow in Cancer Care at the University of Surrey.

Title of paper: Symptom appraisal and help- seeking before a cancer diagnosis during pregnancy: a qualitative study

Available at: https://doi.org/10.3399/BJGP.2024.0208

There is a gap in current understanding about the experiences of women diagnosed with cancer during or around pregnancy including how they appraise and seek help for cancer-related symptoms. This qualitative study found that women and healthcare professionals often interpreted symptoms through the lens of pregnancy, particularly when symptoms were vague. Health professionals need to ensure full assessment of symptoms, timely referral, and effective safety-netting for these women.

Transcript

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Speaker A

00:00:01.040 - 00:01:04.650

Hello and welcome to BJJP Interviews. I'm Nada Khan and I'm one of the associate editors of the bjgp. Thanks for listening to this podcast today. In today's episode, we're speaking to Dr.

Aphrodite Marcoux, a research fellow in Cancer care at the University of Surrey.

We're here to talk about a paper she's recently published here in the bjgp, which is titled Symptom Appraisal and Help Seeking Before a Cancer Diagnosis during Pregnancy, A Qualitative Study. So it's really lovely to meet you, Aphrodita, to talk about your research.

And I think this is a really important area and I wanted to get your thoughts on just why this area is so important to research.

But I think that most people will probably appreciate that during pregnancy, women's bodies are going through lots of changes, so it can sometimes be difficult to know what's normal and what's not. But talk us through why you wanted to do this study.

What are the challenges faced by patients and by doctors around cancer diagnosis in women who are pregnant?

Speaker B

00:01:05.050 - 00:02:32.190

It's an important area to research because the symptoms of pregnancy, the bodily changes that naturally occur during pregnancy, can mask the symptoms of cancer, both for the women experiencing them, but also for the healthcare professionals with whom they come into contact and with whom they share the symptoms.

So it's an important area to research from that point of view in terms of understanding the potential causes for delay in receiving a cancer diagnosis.

And one of the areas which we discovered was less researched was early diagnosis or timeliness of diagnosis of cancer diagnosis in the context of pregnancy.

So we conducted this research because there was a lack of research, especially in the uk, on women's pathway or other pathways to a cancer diagnosis and pregnancy.

And we wanted to get a more detailed understanding knowledge of how women make sense of their symptoms during pregnancy, how they seek help and why to whom they present, midwife, gp, other healthcare professionals and how they receive a diagnosis. What is the pathway to a cancer diagnosis and pregnancy?

We wanted to get more clarity about that, more detail, and we were also interested to find out whether delays characterize this pathway to a cancer diagnosis in pregnancy, be they patient related delays or healthcare system related delays.

Speaker A

00:02:32.830 - 00:02:44.750

And I guess you've touched on this. So does do we know if there are delays in cancer diagnosis amongst women who are pregnant?

So do they tend to have a...