HealthDay News — The assessment of cancer risk based on symptoms, age, and sex can be enhanced by considering information from common blood test results among patients presenting with nonspecific abdominal symptoms, according to a study published online July 30 in PLOS Medicine. Meena Rafiq, MD, PhD, from University College London, and colleagues quantified the predictive value of 19 abnormal blood test results for detecting underlying cancer in patients ages 30 years and older presenting with 2 nonspecific abdominal symptoms (abdominal pain or bloating). The researchers found that 2.2% of the 425,549 patients with abdominal pain and 2.2% of the 52,321 with abdominal bloating were diagnosed with cancer within 12 months after presentation. In two-thirds of all patients (64% with abdominal pain and 70% with bloating), concurrent blood tests were performed. Several blood abnormalities updated a patient’s cancer risk to above the 3 percent threshold in patients aged 30 to 59 years (e.g., pre-blood test cancer risk of 1.6% increased to 10% with raised ferritin in women 50 to 59 years of age).