A recent analysis of more than 2.7 million patients reported a steady increase in the time between cancer diagnosis and initiation of first treatment over the period 2012–2023. The authors stated that the longer waiting times were observed consistently across all cancers included in their analysis of stage 1–3, surgically eligible tumors.
The accessible portion of the STAT News report highlights the main signal — that patients are now waiting longer to start treatment than they were a decade ago — but does not provide the full numerical results or cancer-specific breakdowns in the public excerpt.
The investigators used the National Cancer Database (NCDB), a national clinical registry maintained by the American College of Surgeons. They restricted their cohort to patients diagnosed from 2012 through 2023 who had stage 1–3 cancers and were considered eligible for surgical management at diagnosis. The final analytic sample included more than 2.7 million patients.
The report indicates the analysis spanned six different cancer types, although the public article does not list which specific cancers were included in those six.
The primary interval evaluated was the time from diagnosis to any first treatment. The authors counted initiation of surgery, radiation, chemotherapy, or other medical therapies as the first treatment event. The study therefore measured a composite measure of time-to-treatment across treatment modalities rather than timing for surgery alone.
Details on how diagnosis date and treatment initiation were defined in the NCDB extract, methods of censoring, or handling of same-day diagnosis-treatment events were not reported in the accessible text.
The article lists several potential explanations suggested by the authors for the observed increases in time to treatment:
The public excerpt does not present quantitative estimates attributing portions of the delay to each factor or analyses demonstrating causality.
Tim Donahue, the study’s senior author and a surgical oncologist at the University of California, Los Angeles, is quoted in the reported excerpt: “What was striking was the consistency. Across every cancer we studied, patients are waiting longer today than they were a decade ago.” The quote underscores the cross-cutting nature of the trend across the cancers included.
No additional expert comments or counterpoints from other clinicians or health systems were provided in the accessible portion.
Important methodological and result details were not included in the publicly available excerpt of the STAT News story, because the article continues behind a STAT+ paywall. Specifically, the following were not reported in the accessible text:
Readers requiring those specifics would need access to the full STAT+ article or the underlying study materials.
Delays between diagnosis and initiation of therapy can be distressing to patients and may carry the risk of disease progression in some contexts. The reported increase in time to treatment across multiple cancers suggests potential system-level challenges that could affect timely care delivery. The authors and the article point to multi-factorial contributors — clinical complexity, workforce capacity, and administrative processes — which may require distinct mitigation strategies.
Because the accessible report does not quantify the magnitude of delays or link delays to clinical outcomes, clinicians and health system leaders will need the detailed results to prioritize interventions (for example, resource allocation, pathway redesign, or pre-authorization reform).
The STAT News report summarizes a large NCDB-based analysis indicating a clear, consistent trend toward longer waits from diagnosis to first treatment for stage 1–3 surgically eligible cancers between 2012 and 2023. The public excerpt documents the dataset, time window, primary outcome definition, and possible explanatory factors, and it quotes the study’s senior author on the uniformity of the trend. However, the full article is behind a STAT+ paywall; the accessible text does not include exact delay magnitudes, cancer-specific findings, statistical methods, or actionable recommendations. Those seeking complete numeric results and more granular analyses will need to consult the full STAT+ article or the original study materials.