Nicholson BD, Aveyard P, Koshiaris C, et al. - A presenting feature of cancer is unexpected weight loss (UWL) in primary care. Patients with UWL who do not warrant further cancer investigation, in addition to those that do, could be selected using simple scores including age-group, gender, and 7 simple primary care blood tests (albumin, alkaline phosphatase, C-reactive protein, hemoglobin, liver enzymes, platelets, and total white cell count).

• Three clinical scores including symptoms, symptoms and test results, and test results, were derived for 63,693 adults with UWL using their electronic health record data in order to predict the risk of cancer within 6 months.

• Patients with and without cancer could be discriminated using the scores including test results; further, these scores were well calibrated at the levels of risk that could aid in making decisions in primary care, and showed superior clinical utility relative to the symptoms-only model.