Time to Surgery: A Health Equity Metric in Breast Cancer Patients

Background: We evaluated whether time to surgery by race can be a health equity metric of surgical access.

Methods: An observational analysis was performed using the National Cancer Database from 2010 to 2019. Inclusion criteria were women with stage I-III breast cancer. We excluded women with multiple cancers and whose diagnosis was made at a different hospital. The primary outcome variable was surgery within 90 days of diagnosis.

Results: A total of 886,840 patients were analyzed, with 76.8% White and 11.7% Black patients. 11.9% of patients experienced delayed surgery, which was significantly more common in Black patients than White patients. On adjusted analysis, Black patients were still significantly less likely to receive surgery within 90 days when compared to White patients (OR 0.61, 95% CI 0.58-0.63).

Conclusion: The delay in surgery experienced by Black patients highlights the contribution of system factors in cancer inequity and should be a focus for targeted interventions.