TUESDAY, Nov. 26, 2013 (HealthDay News) -- Women who have longer wait times from diagnosis of uterine cancer to definitive surgery have reduced overall survival, according to research published online Nov. 25 in the Journal of Clinical Oncology.
Lorraine M. Elit, M.D., of McMaster University in Hamilton, Canada, and colleagues analyzed data for 9,417 women with uterine cancer to assess the effect of wait time (from histologic diagnosis to definitive surgery by hysterectomy) on all-cause survival.
The researchers found that 51.9 percent of the women had surgery by a gynecologist, and 69.9 percent had endometrioid adenocarcinoma. The five-year survival according to wait times was 71.1 percent for 0.1 to 2.0 weeks, 81.8 percent for 2.1 to 6.0 weeks, 79.5 percent for 6.1 to 12.0 weeks, and 71.9 percent for more than 12 weeks. After adjustment for other significant factors in the multivariable model, wait times of 2.0 weeks or less worsened prognosis for survival. Compared with those who had wait times between 2.1 and 12.0 weeks, patients with wait times of more than 12 weeks had worse survival.
"To the best of our knowledge, this is the first report in a large population-based cohort demonstrating that longer wait times from diagnosis of uterine cancer to definitive surgery have a negative impact on overall survival," the authors write.
Abstract
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