Mortality due to cancer treatment delay: systematic review and meta-analysis.
Timothy P HannaWill D KingStephane ThibodeauMatthew JalinkGregory A PaulinElizabeth Harvey-JonesDylan E O'SullivanChristopher M BoothRichard SullivanAjay K AggarwalPublished in: BMJ (Clinical research ed.) (2020)
Cancer treatment delay is a problem in health systems worldwide. The impact of delay on mortality can now be quantified for prioritisation and modelling. Even a four week delay of cancer treatment is associated with increased mortality across surgical, systemic treatment, and radiotherapy indications for seven cancers. Policies focused on minimising system level delays to cancer treatment initiation could improve population level survival outcomes.