Abstract
This study aimed to explore whether different multidisciplinary team (MDT) organizations have different effects on the survival of breast cancer patients. A total of 16354 patients undergoing breast cancer surgery during the period 2006–2016 at the Fudan University Shanghai Cancer Center were retrospectively extracted. Patients treated by MDT were divided into a well-organized group and a disorganized group based on their organized MDT, professional attendance, style of data and information delivery, and the length of discussion time for each patient. Other patients, who were not treated by MDT, were placed in a non-MDT group as a comparator group. Each MDT patient was matched with a non-MDT patient, using propensity score matching to reduce selection bias. The Cox regression model was used to examine the difference in effects between groups. We found that the five-year survival rate of the well-organized MDT group was 15.6% higher than the non-MDT group. However, five-year survival rate of the disorganized MDT group was 19.9% lower than that of the non-MDT group. Patients in the well-organized MDT group had a longer survival time than patients in the non-MDT group (HR = 0.4), while the disorganized MDT group had a worse survival rate than the non-MDT group (HR = 2.8) based on the Cox model result. However, our findings indicate that a well-organized MDT may improve the survival rate of patients with breast cancer in China.
Highlights
Multidisciplinary teams (MDTs) are composed of healthcare professionals, and aim to reach A consensus on the diagnosis and treatment of patients, based on scientific and experiential evidence [1].A coordinator is responsible for organizing the multidisciplinary team (MDT) meetings [2]
Patients in the MDT group had A higher proportion of Stage 3 tumors compared to patients in the N-MDT group, at 50.8% versus 12.7%, respectively
This means that having an MDT secretary, adding a pathologist, having a suitable enough discussion time, and being well prepared may have A positive effect on the effectiveness infrastructure, providing enough discussion time, and being well prepared may have a positive of MDTs
Summary
Multidisciplinary teams (MDTs) are composed of healthcare professionals (including surgeons, oncologists, radiologists, pathologists, pathologists, and specialist nurses), and aim to reach A consensus on the diagnosis and treatment of patients, based on scientific and experiential evidence [1]. A coordinator is responsible for organizing the MDT meetings [2]. MDTs make decisions regarding diagnosis and treatment programs through MDT meetings [3]. MDT meetings have been performed as part of cancer care services in Europe, the United States, and Australia [4,5]. They have been considered to be the gold standard of cancer care [6]. China has A large number of cancer patients, making it difficult to provide every patient with multidisciplinary consultation [7]
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