2024 World Conference on Lung Cancer (WCLC) - ePosters-EP.07A.18 Do Excessive Delays Affect Pathologic Upstaging for Early Lung Cancer?

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The study, part of the Initiative for Early Lung Cancer Research on Treatment (IELCART), investigates the impact of excessive treatment delays on pathologic upstaging in early-stage lung cancer patients. The research includes data from 2016 to 2024, focusing on patients with clinical stage I lung cancer, where the tumor size is a maximum of 30 mm (T1a-c), and observes the median time from the suspicious scan to surgery (TTI) being 84 days.<br /><br />The study divided participants into four quantiles based on the speed of their treatment: fastest to slowest. The analysis sought to determine correlations between these time delays and pathologic upstaging, as well as cancer cell types. While statistical significance was not achieved, there was a trend toward increased frequency of tumor size upstaging with longer delays. This trend implies a potential association where longer delays may lead to tumor growth.<br /><br />Notably, the study found no significant differences in treatment delay across different cancer cell types. However, a higher frequency of typical carcinoid tumors was noted in the slower TTI quantiles, possibly due to the indolent nature of these tumors, leading to delayed interventions.<br /><br />The past research by the authors has identified disparities in time-to-treatment negatively affecting certain demographics, such as Black or African American patients, those with lower income, and individuals with vascular disease. This study highlights the importance of reducing delays for aggressive early-stage lung cancers to improve outcomes, and suggests that future research should focus on understanding survival rates and recurrence after treatment delays.<br /><br />Overall, the research emphasizes the need to prioritize timely surgeries for early-stage lung cancer, with careful consideration of the potential impacts of clinical trial delays and differences between surgical and radiotherapeutic treatment timelines.

Asset Subtitle

Jeffrey Zhu

Meta Tag

Speaker Jeffrey Zhu

Topic Early-Stage Non-small Cell Lung Cancer

Keywords

IELCART

early-stage lung cancer

treatment delays

pathologic upstaging

clinical stage I

tumor size

time-to-treatment

carcinoid tumors

demographic disparities

timely surgeries