Breast cancer patients face increasing number of imaging visits before surgery
Dec 9, 2011 - 5:00:00 AM
|
|
|
Previous studies have examined patient burden in terms of cost, but Bleicher says he hasn't seen studies that focus on the patient burden in terms of the patient's time. I wanted to take a look at how things have been changing for patients and how many times they have to travel back and forth to get more imaging, he says. Physicians need to keep in mind that it's hard enough for working people to take off from work and trek back and forth to appointments, but older people have infirmities, and it's harder to get around. The coordination of care is very important. We need to focus more on the burden to the patient.
|
By Fox Chase Cancer Center,
[RxPG] SAN ANTONIO, TX -- Breast cancer patients frequently undergo imaging like mammograms or ultrasounds between their first breast cancer-related doctor visit and surgery to remove the tumor. Evaluations of these scans help physicians understand a person's disease and determine the best course of action. In recent years, however, imaging has increased in dramatic and significant ways, say researchers from Fox Chase Cancer Center. More patients have repeat visits for imaging than they did 20 years ago, and single imaging appointments increasingly include multiple types of imaging.
The researchers, led by Richard Bleicher, M.D., surgical oncologist at Fox Chase, found that between 1992 and 2005, the percentage of patients who had multiple (2+) imaging visits nearly quadrupled. Bleicher says additional visits present a burden to patients, many of whom are elderly, but the stress may be alleviated through better coordination and evaluation by physicians. Bleicher will present his group's findings on Friday, December 9 at the 2011 CTRC-AACR San Antonio Breast Cancer Symposium.
The burden to the patient is increasing substantially, Bleicher says. The number of days patients are having mammograms, MRIs, and ultrasounds is going up steadily year by year. They're having imaging done more frequently on separate dates during the preoperative interval than ever before. It's surprising.
The preoperative interval begins when a patient first reports to a doctor with a breast complaint and ends when the patient undergoes therapeutic surgery to resect a tumor. For the more than 65,000 patients involved in the study, the preoperative interval lasted 37 days on average. The Fox Chase researchers found that in 1992, roughly one in 20 cancer patients (4.9 percent) diagnosed with invasive, non-metastatic cancer underwent imaging twice or more during the preoperative interval. By 2005, that portion had climbed to about one in 5 (19.4 percent). In the extreme case, a small subset of 20 patients underwent mammograms on five or more visits during the preoperative interval.
The researchers also found that a single imaging visit increasingly includes multiple imaging types. In 1992, 4.3 percent of patients underwent multiple types of imaging; in 2005, that rate rose to 27.1 percent.
With the increased use of imaging, Bleicher says that for physicians, the question becomes, 'How are we affecting patients overall with what we're ordering nowadays?'
Previous studies have examined patient burden in terms of cost, but Bleicher says he hasn't seen studies that focus on the patient burden in terms of the patient's time. I wanted to take a look at how things have been changing for patients and how many times they have to travel back and forth to get more imaging, he says. Physicians need to keep in mind that it's hard enough for working people to take off from work and trek back and forth to appointments, but older people have infirmities, and it's harder to get around. The coordination of care is very important. We need to focus more on the burden to the patient.
|
Subscribe to Latest Research Newsletter
|
|
|
|
Feedback
|
For any corrections of factual information, to contact the editors or to send
any medical news or health news press releases, use
feedback form
|
Top of Page
|
