Wait times are increasing between cancer diagnosis and the start of first-course therapy for six cancer types, according to a retrospective cohort study.Predictors of longer wait times included Medicaid insurance, lowest-quartile income, Black race, increased travel distance, and treatment at academic institutions, among other factors.These results should be considered in the context of previous research linking treatment delays with worse survival outcomes, researchers said.
Cancer patients are facing longer wait times between diagnosis and the start of first-course therapy, a retrospective cohort study suggested.
Among more than 2.7 million patients with nonmetastatic stage I-III breast, colon, lung, pancreatic, gastric, or esophageal cancer, the median time from diagnosis to first-course therapy increased across all malignancies from 2012 to 2023, reported Timothy R. Donahue, MD, of the University of California Los Angeles, and colleagues.
Over that period, wait times increased from 34 to 45 days for breast cancer, 20 to 31 days for colon cancer, 41 to 53 days for lung cancer, 23 to 32 days for pancreatic cancer, 35 to 49 days for gastric cancer, and 38 to 48 days for esophageal cancer (P for trend <0.001 for all cancers) among those undergoing upfront surgery or neoadjuvant therapy, they noted in JAMA Surgery.
