Cancer: one month delay in treatment leads to higher risk of death

To carry out their study, British and Canadian researchers analyzed the consequences of delayed treatment (surgery, systemic treatment and radiotherapy) for seven types of cancer (bladder, breast, colon, rectum, lung, cervix and head and neck), from 34 studies published in Medline from January 1, 2000 to April 10, 2020. According to experts, one month of delay can result in 6 to 13% more risk of dying.

According to the data, a four week delay for surgery increases mortality by 6% to 8%. The figure rises to 9% for radiotherapy of head and neck cancer and can rise to 13% in certain situations, such as during adjuvant treatment for colorectal cancer. If the delay in treatments reaches eight weeks for breast cancer surgery, the risk of mortality rises to 17% and 26% for a period of twelve weeks.

To give an idea of ​​the consequences, the authors estimated at 6,100 additional deaths in one year in the United States and 1,400 in the United Kingdom in the event of a 12-week delay in surgery for women with cancer. breast.

According to the study’s authors: “ some countries have published recommendations on the prioritization of cancer surgeries, which the results of this study do not seem to validate “. In the UK, for example, it is possible to delay certain treatments or operations (such as colorectal surgery) for 10 to 12 weeks without negative impact on the patient’s prognosis. However, the experts behind the study observed a finding that goes against these indications: “ We found that increasing the wait time for this type of surgery to 12 weeks instead of 6 increased the risk of death by 9%. “.

The study concludes as follows: a four week delay in treatment is associated with increased mortality in all common forms of cancer treatment, with longer delays increasingly damaging. In light of these findings, policies focused on minimizing system-level delays in the initiation of cancer treatment could improve population-level survival outcomes. “