Time matters: A retrospective study of cancer care in a Brazilian public university hospital.

Abstract

e18171 Background: The perception of symptoms, diagnosys, access to a cancer care institute and the first-line of therapy are milestones of cancer care. The success of an oncological treatment is directly relatable to these key-points and the time gaps between them. Growing research in developing countries points out the challenges of offering quality of care in this setting as social, cultural, economic and political factors are deeply intertwined. The objective of this study is to identify the key-points of cancer care, the time gaps between them and the time-related end-points of patients refered to a medical oncology department of a public university hospital in São Paulo, Brazil, in the period of one year. Methods: This is a observational retrospective study based on review of medical records of all cancer patients refered to the medical oncology department of a public university hospital in São Paulo, Brazil, from 01/01/17 to 12/31/17. The analysis was performed in January 2019. The data collected comprises the age at diagnosys, gender, primary tumor site, stage (AJCC 7th ed. staging system), onset of symptons, date of hystopathological diagnosys, the first therapeutic modality and when it was offered, intention of care (curative or palliative), outcomes and the following time-relations: symptoms-dyagnosis (SD), dyagnosis-treatment (DT) and symptoms-treatment (ST). Results: From 358 profiles, 275 were included. The average age at diagnosys was 58,7 years (15-88 years). Men were 147 (53,4%) and 128 (46,5%) were women. The most common primary tumor sites were gastrointestinal tract 22,9%, head and neck 20,3%, cutaneous melanoma 17,8% and genitourinary tract 16%. 160 (58,1%) patients were diagnosed at advanced/metastatic stages (III/IV). The median time-relations were: 5,5 months for SD; 2 months for DT and 8 months for ST. The first treatment offered was surgery at 63,2% of cases, radiotherapy 17,8%, systemic therapy 16,7% (endocrine therapy, targeted therapy or chemotherapy) or palliative care 1,8%. The intention of the initial treatment: 76,3% were curative and 23,2% palliative. At time of analysis, 63,6% of patients were alive, 19,2% deceased and 16,7% of unknown outcome. Conclusions: Our data endorses prevalent findings of developing countries epidemiological studies: late diagnosys, non-curative treatments and poor outcomes. Known causes are desfavorable social-economic conditions, symptom neglection, ineffective cancer screening and deficiency of public cancer care networks. We emphasize time goals as important quality indexes to guide new solutions.