According to the Breast Cancer Network Australia, the risk of being diagnosed with breast cancer over a lifetime is 1 in 7 for women and 1 in 542 for men. Breast cancer, behind lung cancer, is the most frequent cancer-related cause of death for Australian women. Timely diagnosis and treatment are important since delays may reduce survival rates. Researchers wanted to quantify those issues using high-quality registry data.
The Breast Cancer Outcomes Study, was a population-based cohort analysis of women in Queensland diagnosed with invasive breast cancer between 2010 and 2013, as recorded in the Queensland Cancer Register. Survival data were tracked to the end of 2020. Researchers gathered information through telephone interviews and manual extraction from medical records. They compared the actual treatment intervals experienced by the women against the 2020 guidelines. These intervals included the time from diagnosis to the start of various treatments (such as surgery, chemotherapy, and radiotherapy). They also checked whether these intervals fell within or were later than the recommended durations.
More than 3000 women were included in the study. About 45 per cent experienced non-compliance with the guideline-recommended intervals. The study’s key finding was that women who received treatment within the guideline-recommended timeframes had significantly better survival rates compared to those who did not. Specifically, the risk of death from breast cancer was higher in the overall non-compliance group. The study also identified optimal cut-points for treatment intervals, beyond which the risk of death increased significantly.
The study highlights the importance of timely breast cancer treatment and underscores the need for healthcare systems to ensure prompt and efficient treatment pathways for breast cancer patients. The study advocates for more personalised, integrated healthcare approaches to reduce the diagnosis-to-treatment window.
More information
Treatment intervals and survival for women diagnosed with early breast cancer in Queensland – the Breast Cancer Outcomes Study: Medical Journal of Australia https://www.mja.com.au/journal/2023/219/9/treatment-intervals-and-survival-women-diagnosed-early-breast-cancer-queensland
Breast Cancer Network Australia: https://www.bcna.org.au/
