Effect of a comprehensive cancer care pathway and a navigation cancer program on breast cancer care in a middle-income country.

Abstract

e13536 Background: Breast cancer (BC) is the most common cancer in women globally and in Colombia, with around 16.000 new cases estimated in 2022. Mortality associated with BC has decreased for 2 main reasons: screening that leads to early diagnosis and improved treatment of BC. However, BC related mortality remains stable in Colombia, with a 5-year overall survival of 74%, lower than other countries on the continent. This difference could be explained, among other things, by delays, barriers, and fragmentation of cancer care. Luis Carlos Sarmiento Angulo Cancer Treatment and Research Center (CTIC) is an institution designed for comprehensive cancer care, with specialized patient care through cancer clinics dedicated to a single disease (breast cancer, lung cancer, etc.). Every cancer clinic is associated with a cancer navigation program and has clinical care pathways with metrics that seek to monitor and reduce the time to diagnosis and treatment, among others. This study aims to describe the results of the comprehensive breast cancer care program and cancer navigation support in time to breast cancer diagnosis and treatment access. Methods: This descriptive study was carried out by retrospective reviewing of the navigation database from the breast cancer unit of the CTIC, sociodemographic information, clinical characteristics, and time to diagnosis (from first appointment to pathology report) and treatment were collected and described. A comparison between patients with comprehensive and fragmented care was done. Results: Since August 2022, 600 patients with confirmed breast cancer have been evaluated by the BC clinic, 401 (66.8%) patients were admitted through the cancer navigation program, 436 (72.6%) cases presented with a previously established diagnosis of breast cancer, and 164 (27.3%) were the novo cases. Of the novo cases, 37 (23.3%) cases received comprehensive care from diagnosis, with a time to diagnosis of 14 days, and time to treatment of 30.5 days, patients who did not receive comprehensive care presented a time to treatment of 68.1 days. Conclusions: A comprehensive cancer care and support from a navigation program significantly reduce the time to treatment in breast cancer patients. A comprehensive care model in Colombia has the opportunity to generate a better opportunity for access to diagnosis (14 days) and treatment (30.5 days) compared to the time to treatment data reported in the high-cost account (CAC) (27 and 52 days respectively). [Table: see text]