Introduction/Aim: Lung cancer remains the leading cause of cancer related death in Australia. Literature has shown a significant proportion of these patients are diagnosed via emergency department. This audit seeks to better define the patient demographics, staging and time to diagnosis of emergently diagnosed lung cancer patients in the Gold Coast area.

Methods: De-identified data from all 890 patients discussed at Lung Cancer Multi-disciplinary Team (MDT) from 2018 to 2020 were collected. Medical records for included patients were reviewed to collect data around demographics, cancer stage, time to diagnosis and treatment, and mortality.

Results: 23.6% of MDT patients had lung cancer diagnosed via ED presentation. Mean (±SD) age of patients was 70 ± 11 years and 50% were male. 69.7% of patients had Stage IV disease at time of diagnosis. 88.6% of patients were admitted to hospital for further work up, with mean (±SD) LOS of 8.8 ± 8.3 days. Forty-three percent of patients required additional outpatient investigations. The mean time from initial ED presentation to MDT discussion was 18 days and from MDT recommendation to commencement of treatment was 19 days.

Conclusion: Our audit has confirmed emergently diagnosed patients are a significant proportion of the lung cancer population and most have advanced disease at time of presentation. There is a need for more community education about symptoms concerning for lung malignancy to encourage early presentation and rapid access lung cancer clinic to reduce the need for hospitalization.