(Press-News.org) Chicago, August 5, 2015 - Patients undergoing surgery for lung cancer may wait too long to receive treatment, and too many patients skip vital diagnostic steps that are needed to help determine the best possible treatment, according to study published in the August 2015 issue of The Annals of Thoracic Surgery.
Key points:
Patients who undergo surgery for lung cancer often wait too long to receive treatment, and too many patients skip vital diagnostic steps that are needed to help determine the best possible treatment;
Only 1 in 10 patients had the recommended combination of three staging tests before surgery;
Researchers encourage patients to take an active role in their treatment, ask a lot of questions, and follow up with his or her doctor on a regular basis.
The 5-year relative survival of all patients diagnosed with lung cancer in the United States is approximately 17%, according to the National Cancer Institute, and has changed little in the last 30 years. Fewer than half of all patients who undergo surgery for lung cancer survive as long as 5 years.
Nicolas Faris, MDiv and Raymond Osarogiagbon, MBBS led a group of researchers from Baptist Cancer Center and the University of Memphis in Tennessee, who reviewed hospital records for all patients who underwent surgery for suspected lung cancer at Baptist Memorial Hospital between January 2009 and June 2013. Using only patients who had surgery for suspected lung cancer, the researchers examined how long it took to begin care and what steps were taken to determine appropriate treatment.
"It takes too long for patients who have suspected lung cancer to get final treatment, and too many patients skip vital steps needed to decide the best possible treatment," said Dr. Osarogiagbon. "This delay in treatment can cause the cancer to advance and reduce the odds of survival for the patient."
The researchers found that of the 614 eligible patients included in the analysis, 27% had no preoperative diagnostic procedure, 22% did not have an imaging scan to stage the cancer, and 88% did not have an invasive staging test. Only 1 in 10 patients (10%) had the recommended combination of three staging tests [computed tomography (CT) scan, positron emission tomography (PET)/CT scan, and an invasive test] before surgery.
Overall, results also showed that it took a month and a half to more than 6 months for many patients to undergo surgery after an initial x-ray displayed signs of possible lung cancer.
"Lung cancer care is complicated, and all key specialists must be actively engaged early on with each patient to determine the best sequence of tests and treatment for each individual," said Dr. Osarogiagbon. "Programs that provide treatment for lung cancer also must measure their performance actively and carefully in order to improve the quality of care and improve patients' chances of survival."
Faris added that quality matters at every step in the lung cancer treatment process. "Patients should feel comfortable taking an active role in their treatment process and ask a lot of questions - find out what treatment is right for them, why that option is the best, and what steps they can take to be better prepared for treatment," he said.
Disease-Based Approach to Quality Improvement
In an invited commentary in the same issue of The Annals, Farhood Farjah, MD, MPH, from the University of Washington in Seattle, noted that significant gaps exist in the quality of lung cancer care. "The authors plan to bridge this gap with a multidisciplinary team of thoracic oncology experts and system engineers," he said.
The Faris study is part of an ongoing prospective process-of-care analysis to examine factors associated with deviation from optimal care delivery for both surgical and non-surgical patients.
"Faris and colleagues intend to evaluate all patients with suspected or confirmed non-small cell lung cancer in the future--a point that deserves emphasis," said Dr. Farjah. "They intend to pursue a disease-based rather than a treatment-based approach to quality improvement. This change means that more patients can potentially reap the benefits of quality improvement."
INFORMATION:
Note: This work was supported through a Patient-Centered Outcomes Research Institute (PCORI) Award.
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0003497515003719
Notes for editors
"Preoperative Evaluation of Lung Cancer in a Community Heath Care Setting"
(doi:10.1016/j.athoracsur.2015.03.008); The Annals of Thoracic Surgery published by Elsevier.. http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0003497515003719
Full text of the article is available to credentialed journalists upon request; contact Cassie McNulty cmcnulty@sts.org at +1 312 202 5865
About The Annals of Thoracic Surgery
The Annals of Thoracic Surgery is the official journal of STS and the Southern Thoracic Surgical Association. Founded in 1964, The Society of Thoracic Surgeons is a not-for-profit organization representing more than 6,800 cardiothoracic surgeons, researchers, and allied health care professionals worldwide who are dedicated to ensuring the best possible outcomes for surgeries of the heart, lung, and esophagus, as well as other surgical procedures within the chest. The Society's mission is to enhance the ability of cardiothoracic surgeons to provide the highest quality patient care through education, research, and advocacy. http://www.annalsthoracicsurgery.org
About Elsevier
Elsevier is a world-leading provider of information solutions that enhance the performance of science, health, and technology professionals, empowering them to make better decisions, deliver better care, and sometimes make groundbreaking discoveries that advance the boundaries of knowledge and human progress. Elsevier provides web-based, digital solutions -- among them ScienceDirect, Scopus, Elsevier Research Intelligence, and ClinicalKey -- and publishes over 2,500 journals, including The Lancet and Cell, and more than 33,000 book titles, including a number of iconic reference works. Elsevier is part of RELX Group plc, a world-leading provider of information solutions for professional customers across industries. http://www.elsevier.com
CAMBRIDGE, Mass--One big problem faced by electrodes in rechargeable batteries, as they go through repeated cycles of charging and discharging, is that they must expand and shrink during each cycle -- sometimes doubling in volume, and then shrinking back. This can lead to repeated shedding and reformation of its "skin" layer that consumes lithium irreversibly, degrading the battery's performance over time.
Now a team of researchers at MIT and Tsinghua University in China has found a novel way around that problem: creating an electrode made of nanoparticles with a solid ...
Many patients with bipolar disorder, a debilitating mental condition that can take a person from the sluggishness of severe depression to super-human energy levels, are often misdiagnosed as having major depressive disorder, or MDD. But now as an alternative to reliance on patient interviews, scientists are closing in on an objective test that could help clinicians distinguish between the two -- and provide better treatment. Their method appears in ACS' Journal of Proteome Research.
For many reasons, bipolar disorder is commonly mistaken for MDD. One reason is that the ...
People ignore daily alcohol guidelines as they are deemed irrelevant to occasional drinkers
Findings show drinkers prefer Canadian and Australian guidelines
Research may be used to inform new policies in the future
The Government's current alcohol guidelines are unrealistic and largely ignored because they have little relevance to people's drinking habits, according to a new report by the University of Sheffield's Alcohol Research Group (SARG) in collaboration with the University of Stirling.
The study, which is the first of its kind, explored how drinkers make ...
Scientists at the University of York have shed new light on how humans process colour - revealing that we see things differently in winter compared with summer.
The researchers examined how our colour perception changes between seasons and in particular how we process the colour known as unique yellow.
Humans identify four unique hues - blue, green, yellow and red - that do not appear to contain mixtures of other colours.
Unique yellow is particularly interesting to scientists as it is stable across large populations - everyone agrees what unique yellow looks like despite ...
Study suggests planetary rings have a universal particle distribution
Study solves 'amazing' mathematical inverse cubes law of particle size distribution
In a breakthrough study, an international team of scientists, including Professor Nikolai Brilliantov from the University of Leicester, has solved an age-old scientific riddle by discovering that planetary rings, such as those orbiting Saturn, have a universally similar particle distribution.
The study, which is published in the academic journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS), also suggests ...
Large-scale anonymised datasets from mobile phones can give a better picture of society than ever before available. Mobile phone use helps us understand social networks, mobility and human behaviour. A review article recently published in EPJ Data Science highlights the main contributions in the field of mobile phone datasets analysis in the past 15 years. Vincent Blondel from the Université Catholique de Louvain, in Belgium, and colleagues conclude, among other things, that predictions that the world would shrink into a small village have not completely materialised ...
Counties in the United States with more beautiful weather and scenery have lower rates of membership and affiliation with religious organizations, according to a Baylor University study.
"Beautiful weather, mountains and waterfronts can serve as conduits to the sacred, just like traditional religious congregations," said lead author Todd W. Ferguson, a doctoral candidate in sociology in Baylor's College of Arts & Sciences.
But the research is not necessarily a measure of whether enjoying the great outdoors tempts people away from going to a place of worship on a lovely ...
UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA, BERKELEY'S HAAS SCHOOL OF BUSINESS--Stories about corrupt CEOs raiding the corporate piggy bank would appear to be the best argument for shareholder protection laws known as "anti-self-dealing laws." But there's another bonus. A new study finds in countries with strong legislation to prevent fraudulent corporate behavior, banking crises have a less severe impact on firms and the economy in general.
The study, "How the stock market can play this critical role is the subject of "Spare Tire? Stock Markets, Banking Crises, and Economic Recoveries," ...
Researchers have identified a protein produced by white blood cells that puts the brakes on muscle repair after injury.
By removing the protein CD163 from mice, scientists at Emory University School of Medicine could boost muscle repair and recovery of blood flow after ischemic injury (damage caused by restriction of blood flow).
The findings point to a target for potential treatments aimed at enhancing muscle regeneration. Muscle breakdown occurs in response to injury or inactivity -- during immobilization in a cast, for example -- and in several diseases such as diabetes ...
This news release is available in Portuguese and Spanish.
A recently published special issue of the Journal of Heredity focuses on case studies of real-world applications of conservation genetics in Latin America, from nabbing parrot smugglers to exposing fraudulent fish sales.
The discipline of conservation genetics - the use of genetic techniques to further goals of conserving and restoring biodiversity - has been growing for at least four decades. But only relatively recently have genetic techniques been used not just to understand conservation problems, ...
