This retrospective single-centre study at Christchurch Hospital aimed to quantify wait times for adjuvant breast radiotherapy following definitive surgery or completion of adjuvant chemotherapy, and to examine how local COVID-19 lockdown periods affected service delivery. The authors emphasised the clinical importance of timely radiotherapy, noting that prolonged delays may increase the risk of locoregional recurrence.
The analysis included patients with breast cancer who initiated adjuvant radiotherapy at Christchurch Hospital between 1 January 2018 and 31 December 2022. Wait times were defined as the interval, measured in days, from either the final surgical procedure or the completion of adjuvant chemotherapy to the first fraction of radiotherapy. Median wait times were calculated, tabulated and graphed, with trend lines drawn to account for the COVID-19 lockdown periods that affected the Canterbury region of New Zealand.
The study design is described as a retrospective review. The source reports the analytic focus on time-to-treatment intervals; additional methodological specifics such as inclusion/exclusion criteria, covariates, or statistical models beyond the temporal trend estimate were not detailed in the abstract.
A total of 682 patients comprised the cohort. The reported median wait time from final surgery to the first fraction of adjuvant radiotherapy was 72 days. For patients who received adjuvant chemotherapy prior to radiotherapy, the median interval from completion of chemotherapy to radiotherapy was 36 days.
These measures represent central tendencies for the study population over the five-year period; further distributional details (for example interquartile ranges or proportions exceeding specific thresholds) were not reported in the abstract.
Trend analysis identified a statistically significant increase in wait times from surgery to radiotherapy over the study period. The increase was quantified as 7.2 days per annum with a 95% confidence interval of 6.84–7.65 days and a p value reported as < 0.001.
The temporal pattern described in the source was an initial increase in wait times followed by a comparative reduction during the COVID-19 lockdown period affecting Canterbury. In other words, although waits rose across the overall interval 2018–2022, the COVID-19 restrictions were associated with a temporary decline in delays relative to the preceding trend.
The authors conclude that wait times for adjuvant radiotherapy at Christchurch Hospital increased between 2018 and 2022. While COVID-19 restrictions corresponded with a short-term reduction in delays, the sustained upward trend indicates ongoing and likely multifactorial pressures on timely radiotherapy delivery.
Clinically, the report underscores that excessive delays in commencing radiotherapy after surgery or chemotherapy should be minimised because of the potential to increase the risk of locoregional recurrence. The abstract frames timely access to adjuvant radiation as a quality-of-care priority.
The source provides key time-interval results and a quantified annual trend, but the abstract does not report certain details that would aid interpretation, including:
Because these details were not reported in the available source abstract, they cannot be inferred here.
The source reports nil conflict of interest. The study is indexed with PMID 42594364 and DOI 10.26635/6965.7269, published in N Z Med J (2026 Aug 14;139(1640):12–22). The research was conducted within the Radiation Oncology Department at Christchurch Hospital and affiliated authors include University of Otago investigators, as listed in the source.