Survival after community diagnosis of early-stage non-small cell lung cancer

Norma F Kanarek; Craig M Hooker; Luckson Mathieu; Hua-Ling Tsai; Charles M Rudin; James G Herman; Malcolm V Brock

doi:10.1016/j.amjmed.2013.12.023

Survival after community diagnosis of early-stage non-small cell lung cancer

Am J Med. 2014 May;127(5):443-9. doi: 10.1016/j.amjmed.2013.12.023. Epub 2014 Jan 28.

Authors

Norma F Kanarek¹, Craig M Hooker², Luckson Mathieu³, Hua-Ling Tsai³, Charles M Rudin³, James G Herman³, Malcolm V Brock⁴

Affiliations

¹ Department of Environmental Health Sciences, Johns Hopkins University Bloomberg School of Public Health, Baltimore, Md; Department of Oncology, Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, Baltimore, Md. Electronic address: nkanarek@jhsph.edu.
² Department of Oncology, Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, Baltimore, Md; Department of Epidemiology, Johns Hopkins University Bloomberg School of Public Health, Baltimore, Md.
³ Department of Oncology, Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, Baltimore, Md.
⁴ Department of Surgery, Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, Bunting Blaustein Cancer Research Building, Baltimore, Md.

Abstract

Background: "Rush to surgery" among patients with worse symptoms, delays related to morbidity, and inclusion of patients with advanced disease in study populations have produced a mixed picture of importance of time to treatment to survival of non-small cell lung cancer. Our objective was to assess the contribution of diagnosis to first surgery interval to survival among patients diagnosed in the community with early-stage non-small cell lung cancer.

Methods: Patients with early-stage lung cancer (N = 174) at the Sidney Kimmel Comprehensive Cancer Center at Johns Hopkins who were diagnosed and treated from 2003 to 2009 and followed through 2011 made up a prospective study of overall survival. Diagnosis to first surgery interval was examined overall, as 2 segments (referral interval and treatment interval), as short and longer intervals, and as a continuous variable.

Results: The majority of patients were female (55%) and aged more than 65 years (61%). The average mean referral and treatment delays were 61.2 and 5.9 days, respectively. Cox method hazard analysis revealed that older age (years) at diagnosis (hazard ratio [HR], 1.02; 95% confidence interval [CI], 1.00-1.05), stage IIB (HR, 2.17; 95% CI, 1.12-4.21), large (>4 cm) (HR, 3.68; 95% CI, 1.05-12.93) or unknown tumor size (HR, 4.45; 95% CI, 1.21-16.38), and weeks from diagnosis to first surgery interval (HR, 1.04; 95% CI, 1.00-1.09) predicted worse overall survival. The threshold period of less than 42 days from diagnosis to surgery did not reach statistical significance.

Conclusions: Patients seem to benefit from rapid reduction of tumor burden with surgery. Reasons for delay were not available. Nevertheless, referral delay experienced in the community is unduly long. In addition to patient choices, an unconscious patient or physician bias that lung cancer is untreatable or an inevitable consequence of smoking may be operating and needs further investigation.

Keywords: Lung; Lung cancer biology; Lung cancer surgery; Quality care management; Statistics; Survival analysis.

Publication types

Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't

MeSH terms

Aged
Aged, 80 and over
Baltimore / epidemiology
Bias
Carcinoma, Non-Small-Cell Lung / diagnosis*
Carcinoma, Non-Small-Cell Lung / mortality*
Carcinoma, Non-Small-Cell Lung / pathology
Carcinoma, Non-Small-Cell Lung / surgery
Catchment Area, Health / statistics & numerical data
Confounding Factors, Epidemiologic
Female
Humans
Kaplan-Meier Estimate
Lung Neoplasms / diagnosis*
Lung Neoplasms / mortality*
Lung Neoplasms / pathology
Lung Neoplasms / surgery
Male
Maryland / epidemiology
Middle Aged
Neoplasm Staging
Pneumonectomy*
Prospective Studies
Quality of Health Care
Referral and Consultation*
Risk Factors
Sex Distribution
Smoking / adverse effects
Time-to-Treatment*
Tumor Burden

Grants and funding

P30 CA006973/CA/NCI NIH HHS/United States