Introduction: Rates of appropriate surgical treatment of colon cancer are historically worse in traditionally marginalized populations. We sought to examine which social determinants of health may be associated with longer time to appropriate operative intervention.
Methods: The National Cancer Databank was queried for this retrospective study. Adult patients (18 to 90 years of age) diagnosed between 2004 and 2018 with single or primary, stage III colon cancer were included. Patient demographic variables included age at diagnosis, sex, ethnicity (Hispanic or non-Hispanic), comorbidity score, median household income, education status, rural/urban status, treatment facility type and location, and insurance status. Disease characteristics include stage (stage 3), primary site, surgical margins, tumor size, and number of nodes resected. Reported descriptive statistics include means and 95% confidence intervals for continuous variables and frequency and proportions for categorical variables. Univariate and multivariate analyses were performed.
Results: A total of 134,601 individuals diagnosed with stage 3 colon cancer were included. Time to surgery in all cases had a mean of 26.4 ± 19.0 days. Multivariate analysis of time to surgery indicated that receiving surgery at a Community Cancer Program, Charlson-Deyo Score of 0, younger age, and non-Hispanic-White race/ethnicity are associated with decreased time to surgery (P < .001).
Conclusion: Patients who receive surgery at a Community Cancer Program, have fewer comorbidities, have lower household income, are younger, and receive surgery within 50 miles of their primary residence are more likely to have timely surgery.
Keywords: colorectal; disparities; race; social determinants of health; surgical oncology.