Women who delay treatment for advance stages of breast cancer are at a 85 percent higher risk of dying from the disease even after taking treatment.
Researchers at The Ohio State University Comprehensive Cancer Center found after conducting a study that women who delay treatment after being diagnosed with advance stage if breast cancer have a higher risk of dying than women who immediately begin treatment.
"We wanted to see whether delaying treatment affected mortality rates among women with breast cancer," said Electra D. Paskett, associate director for population sciences at OSUCCC-James.
"It's been shown that early detection and appropriate, timely treatment can increase five year survival rates to as high as 98 percent. Until this study, we didn't know the profound effect delaying treatment could have," she said.
The report was published in the Journal of Clinical Oncology. The study including analysing cases of 1,786 women enrolled in North Carolina Medicaid system who were diagnosed with breast cancer from January 1, 2000 through December 31, 2002.
Twenty-two days from diagnosis to treatment was taken as the average median time taken for a woman diagnosed with breast cancer to take the treatment. It was found the 66 percent of these women went in for treatment within 30 days of being diagnosed and 90 percent of these women took up treatment within 60 days of being diagnosed with breast cancer.
However, it was found that one in ten women took the treatment more that 60 days after being diagnosed. Among these women, those diagnosed with advance breast cancer risked a 85 percent change to not surviving the disease and over the entire group were at a 66 percent higher risk of dying.
"We're finding as we do research, it is really the lower income population that suffers the highest burden of all diseases," Paskett said. "This study suggests that ten percent of women can't get access to care, or it takes a longer time to get access to care."
"This research shows we have an opportunity to improve breast cancer outcomes by helping women who are diagnosed at late-stage to get started with treatment sooner," Paskett said. "Even if the goal of treatment isn't curative, early treatment seems to prolong survival."
