Effect of a Multidisciplinary Clinic on Time to Treatment for Soft Tissue Sarcoma

Delay in treatment may be associated with worse outcomes for soft tissue sarcoma, which often requires multidisciplinary management. Our objective was to evaluate the implementation of a sarcoma multidisciplinary clinic (MDC) on time to treatment initiation (TTI) at our tertiary cancer center.

Patients with localized or metastatic soft tissue sarcoma were seen at our tertiary referral center from November 2021-January 2024 in MDC or usual care (single specialty clinic). Treatment delay was defined as greater than 50 days from initial assessment to first treatment (surgery, radiation, or systemic therapy), compared using chi-squared tests and multivariable logistic regression.

Among 275 patients, 33 were seen in MDC and 242 usual care. Median TTI was 33.0 days (interquartile range (IQR) 18-57). Eighty-two patients (29.8%) had treatment delays, with no difference for MDC (31.1%) versus usual care (15.2%) (p = 0.05) (adjusted odds ratio 0.39, 95% Confidence Interval 0.14-1.06). Patients evaluated in the MDC were more likely to receive multimodal therapy (75.8% vs. 41.7%, p < 0.01) and radiation as their first treatment (54.5% vs. 27.3%, p < 0.01).

Implementation of a MDC did not significantly reduce treatment delay but was associated with increased likelihood of multimodal therapy. Future work should evaluate TTI in cohorts with greater penetrance of MDC care and assess other oncology and patient-centered endpoints.