Tuesday, July 18, 2006

Time to Chemo and xRt

This has come up in discussions with our hem-onc dept.: Hem-onc has been frustrated by perceived delays from "first abnormal CxRay" to "definitive treatment". Our position is that diagnostic eval should be quick to try and identify possible surgical candidates and that 1-2 weeks (or even a bit more if they do get surgery) added on by staging and diagnostic procedures would not impact response to Chemo/xRt much. Other than perhaps the more aggressive small-cell case, chemo and xRt are usually either adjuvant or reverved for more advanced stages.
Do you know of actual data looking at time from diagnosis to chemo and impact on outcomes?

2 comments - CLICK HERE to read & add your own!:

Anonymous said...

Try this. Well summerized. No definite data but some guidelines.

http://iis-db.stanford.edu/evnts/4204/wait_times-lung_cancer-GouldRIP.ppt

Baleeiro said...

Thank you. That was a great presentation! I had found many of those studies and it seems that though we all think delay times are really bad, there is no data that outcomes are any worse...