Intervening factors for the initiation of treatment of patients with stomach and colorectal cancer.
Thaína Dalla Valle, Ruth Natalia Teresa Turrini, Vanessa de Brito Poveda
PMID 28513766WHAT IT FOUND
Patients with stomach or colorectal cancer took 15.16 months on average from symptoms to treatment.
Most sought care within 30 days, but among those delayed, 73.5% did not link symptoms to illness.
Key findings
01On average, patients waited 15.16 months from the start of symptoms to beginning treatment, with a median wait of 12 months and a range of 0 to 67 months.
02Sixty-seven patients sought medical care within 30 days of symptom onset. For the longer delay in seeking care, 25 patients, or 73.5%, said they did not associate their symptoms with a health problem.
03Only nine patients, 8.9%, linked the symptoms to cancer.
STILL TO COME
How it was doneWhat they foundWhat it means for RNs
Read the rest of this summary
You get three full summaries a month, free, and we do not ask for a card. Search, the TL;DRs and your library stay unlimited either way.
What it does not show
The study was done at one specialized cancer hospital in one Brazilian municipality, so it may not represent other areas. Times relied partly on patient recall, and 7.9% did not remember the waiting periods. Staging was not recorded in the medical records for 21 patients. The sample size calculation borrowed from a lung cancer study rather than a comparable stomach or colorectal cancer study. It was observational and correlational, so it cannot show that any factor caused faster or slower treatment.
Declared interests
The supplied text reports funding from Fundação de Amparo à Pesquisa do Estado de São Paulo (FAPESP), Brazil, process #2013/24004-5; no other conflict statements are given.
The easy way to misread this
Do not read the associations with family history, preventive follow-up, symptoms or hypertension as proof that any of these caused faster treatment. This was an observational descriptive study, not a tested intervention.