Cancer patients across the United States are waiting longer to begin treatment after a diagnosis, according to a recent study published in JAMA Surgery. Median wait times increased by more than 10 days for each of six common cancers examined by researchers.

Researchers from the University of California, Los Angeles and Massachusetts General Hospital analyzed National Cancer Database information from more than 2.7 million patients. The patients were diagnosed between January 2012 and December 2023.

The study focused on adults with early to locally advanced breast, colon, lung, pancreatic, stomach and esophageal cancers. All of the patients underwent surgery as part of their initial care.

Researchers measured the period between diagnosis and the beginning of treatment. That first treatment could have been surgery or therapy administered before surgery to shrink a tumor.

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Across all six cancer types, median waiting times rose by more than 10 days during the study period. The increase occurred whether patients received surgery first or underwent another treatment before surgery.

Patients with stomach cancer experienced the largest increase. Median wait times for that cancer rose from 35 days to 49 days between 2012 and 2023.

Lung cancer wait times increased from 41 days to 53 days. Breast cancer patients saw median waits grow from 34 days to 45 days.

For colon cancer, the median delay rose from 20 days to 31 days. Pancreatic cancer waits climbed from 23 days to 32 days, while esophageal cancer delays increased from 38 days to 48 days.

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Researchers also identified growth in the share of patients who waited 60 days or longer to start treatment. The study covered the time from diagnosis through the start of the first course of therapy.

Dr. Marc Siegel, Fox News senior medical analyst, said the findings point to an urgent problem. "This is part of our healthcare system that needs fixing immediately," Siegel told Fox News Digital.

Siegel was not involved in the research. He noted that the delays also appeared at high volume academic medical centers, despite the concentration of cancer care at such facilities.

After accounting for age and underlying health, the researchers found that longer waits were not distributed evenly among patients. Several demographic, financial, geographic and treatment related factors were associated with longer delays.

Black patients and people covered by Medicaid experienced longer wait times. Delays were also longer among people living in lower income areas and patients who traveled greater distances to receive care.

Patients treated at academic medical centers or high volume hospitals also faced longer waits. Meanwhile, the West recorded longer delays than the other regions examined in the study.

For cancers other than breast cancer, the use of robotic surgery was linked to longer waiting times. The study did not establish the individual reasons that patients experienced those delays.

The study authors cautioned that previous medical research has tied delays in surgical treatment to higher death rates and worse long term survival. However, the new analysis could not determine why each patient waited before beginning care.

Lia D. Delaney, M.D., and Sherry M. Wren, M.D., both of the Stanford School of Medicine in Palo Alto, California, addressed the findings in supporting commentary published with the study. They emphasized that cancer care has become increasingly sophisticated during the last two decades.

However, they wrote, "as cancer care continues to regionalize, efforts to improve quality may inadvertently create barriers to timely treatment unless capacity and coordination evolve in parallel," highlighting the need for capacity and coordination to develop alongside changes in care.

The authors acknowledged several limitations. Because the research relied on retrospective National Cancer Database information, it could not identify exact explanations for individual delays, including scheduling problems, logistical obstacles or patients’ personal preferences.

The database also did not contain information showing when patients initially developed symptoms. It likewise did not document when they first sought medical advice before receiving a cancer diagnosis.

Taken together, the findings documented longer waits across every cancer type included in the analysis. They also showed that some patient groups and treatment settings experienced greater delays than others during the study period.