STAT+: Cancer patients face longer wait times to begin treatment, according to new study

Waiting for treatment to begin can be an agonizing period for cancer patients, filled with fears that the disease is advancing or that therapies may become less effective as time goes on. However, a new study examining the waiting times between cancer diagnosis and treatment for over 2.7 million patients reveals that these delays have been steadily increasing over the past few decades.

Tim Donahue, a senior author and surgical oncologist at the University of California, Los Angeles, noted the striking consistency of this trend across various types of cancer. Despite the fact that patients are waiting longer today than they were a decade ago, the study focused exclusively on patients with early-stage cancers (stages 1 to 3) who were eligible for surgery upon diagnosis.

Donahue and his team analyzed data from the National Cancer Database, a national repository of cancer-related information maintained by the American College of Surgeons, spanning the years 2012 to 2023. They specifically examined the time gap between diagnosis and the onset of any first-line treatment, which could encompass surgery, radiation, chemotherapy, or other medical interventions. The full story can be found on STAT+.