Association of diagnostic delays to survival in lung cancer: single center experience

Background: Rapid diagnostics and treatment approaches have been applied in many countries to enhance patient satisfaction, but it is unknown whether this leads to improvements in survival. Material and methods: Symptoms initiation, referral, and investigations and their timing, and survival were retrospectively collected from all the patients diagnosed for lung cancer at Oulu University Hospital 2015-2016 (n = 221). Correlation of treatment delays to survival was evaluated in different categories and by tumor stages. Results: Survival analysis showed no statistical difference between patients having below or above median time for the whole clinical pathway (from symptoms to treatment). Subsection analysis of the clinical pathway and division of patients by stage showed improved survival for patients having longer than median times in referral to diagnosis (p = .03) and diagnosis to treatment (p < .0001) for the whole population and in the latter for the stage IV patients as well (p < .0001). In multivariate analysis, long diagnosis to treatment time associated with improved survival while statistical difference was lost in the referral to diagnosis interval. Conclusion: Longer time on diagnostic work-up of lung cancer does not worsen the survival suggesting that fast-track approaches might not improve lung cancer outcomes.