Myeloma, colon and gynecological cancer, tumors that take longer to diagnose

by time news

The time it takes for a cancer patient to see a doctor, receive a diagnosis, and begin treatment can vary greatly depending on the patient’s location and the type of cancer, with individuals in the lowest-income countries taking up to four times as long to initiate care.

On average, the processes are between 1.5 and 4 times slower in less developed countries, which compromises the survival of millions of people.

Spain, explains Dafina Petrova, the Biomedical Research Institute of Granada and the CIBER of Epidemiology and Public Health of Spain, author of a study published in “PLOS Medicine”, in general, has waiting times comparable to other countries in our environment ( high-income and/or European countries).

«Our new study identifies cancer types in which diagnosis and initiation of treatment may take longer and reveals significant global disparities in early cancer diagnosis and treatment», he says.

The researchers looked at three time intervals: from first symptoms to doctor visit, from first consultation to diagnosis, and from diagnosis to start of treatment.

In high-income countries, they explain, most patients went to the doctor within a month of presenting symptoms, but in low-income countries this interval was 1.5 to 4 times greater for almost all patients. types of cancer.

In addition, the study determines that there are three cancers that take longer in this entire process: swith cancers that caused nonspecific symptomssuch as myeloma, colorectal cancer, and gynecologic cancer, while prostate and gynecologic cancers took the longest to treat, .

Cancer is one of the leading causes of death worldwide and prompt diagnosis and treatment are essential to improve patient outcomes.

To understand how cancer treatment time varies across cancer types and in high- and low-income countries, the researchers reviewed the relevant scientific literature and conducted a meta-analysis of 410 articles representing 68 countries and more than 5.5 million patients.

«Spain is one of the European countries that provides the most data, although far from the leading countries in this field, such as the US or the UK», details Petrova. Specifically, 19 Spanish studies carried out on more than 13,000 patients, the majority with colorectal cancer, the most frequent cancer in our country considering both sexes.

The new study highlights the magnitude of global disparities in early cancer diagnosis and treatment. The researchers urge efforts to reduce the time it takes for patients in lower-income countries to receive care after experiencing symptoms.

However, they acknowledge that their estimates of the time it takes to diagnose and initiate treatment are mostly from high-income countries, because these countries have strong health information systems to record this information.

In addition, these results highlight cancers for which research into ways to provide earlier diagnosis and treatment may lead to better patient outcomes.

“It would be important to carry out more research on other types of cancer, to help us identify factors that are associated with delays in cancer diagnosis and on which we could act to reduce times,” says Petrova.

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