Think of cancer like an invasive weed in your garden of beautiful begonias. If ignored, the weed may grow and multiply until it eventually takes over the garden, stealing nutrients and sunlight from the flowering plants and crowding them out until only weeds remain.
Certainly, cancer is a much more serious diagnosis than finding weeds in your yard. But the same concept applies. Like a weed, if a tumor is found early, it may be removed or treated before it spreads throughout the body.
Research clearly shows that late diagnoses and delays in treatment increase the risk of death from cancer. That’s why it’s important for people who are at high risk, experiencing symptoms or who meet screening guideline criteria talk to their doctor and get checked.
The Georgia Cancer Control Consortium knows this and has launched an initiative to raise awareness with the goal of “preventing cancer development wherever possible, finding cancers earlier, promoting appropriate screening practices, ensuring quality standards in diagnosis, treatment and palliative care.”
In this article, we’ll explore:
- Why Is Speed to Care Important in Georgia?
- What’s Behind Treatment Delays in Georgia?
- Accessing Faster Cancer Care in Georgia
- Speed to Care at City of Hope Atlanta
If you or a loved one has recently been diagnosed with cancer and are looking for a second opinion, call us 24/7 at 844-662-1190. Appointments may be available in as little as 24 hours.
Why Is Speed to Care Important in Georgia?
From 2012 to 2016, Georgians with some of the most common cancers were not diagnosed until the cancer had advanced, including:
58% of colorectal cancers
80% of lung cancers
61% of cervical cancers
41% of breast cancers
Researchers at Queen’s University at Kingston in Canada have studied treatment delays in patients with those cancers and others and have concluded that delays of as little as four weeks may increase the risk of cancer death by up to 13%. Researchers found that a 28-day delay in:
- Cancer surgery may increase the risk of death by 8%
- Radiation therapy for head and neck cancer may increase the risk of death by 9%
- Systemic treatment for colorectal cancer may increase the risk of death by 13%
They also concluded that:
- An eight-week delay in breast cancer surgery increased the risk of death by 17%
- A 12-week delay in breast cancer surgery increased the risk by 26%
What’s Behind Treatment Delays in Georgia?
The reasons patients may get delayed treatment are not unique to Georgia or the Southeast in general. It often has to do with access and awareness.
In rural areas, quality health care may be hundreds of miles away with a quality cancer center farther still. Also, some rural physicians may not have the experience to spot cancer symptoms or diagnose the disease because they see a smaller number of patients than those at larger urban centers.
Conversely, in urban areas, a University of California at Los Angeles study found that patients are less likely to get adequate care at so-called “high-volume hospitals” that often serve “nonwhites, Medicaid patients and uninsured patients.”
Other reasons for treatment delays outlined in the Queens University study include:
- Having inadequate insurance among the unemployed or under-employed
- Ignoring symptoms or delaying screening or treatment out of fear
- Hospitals having supply-chain or staffing issues
“Due to appointment backlogs and staffing shortages in many health care organizations — some of which are lingering effects of the COVID pandemic — women are experiencing significant delays in booking for mammograms,” says Anita Johnson, M.D., F.A.C.S., a breast surgical oncologist, chief of surgery and leader of the Women’s Cancer Center at City of Hope Atlanta. “Even high-risk patients may wait weeks or months to schedule. Delays in diagnostic and treatment services for cancer patients has direct correlation to increased mortality rate.”
Accessing Faster Cancer Care in Georgia
The Georgia Cancer Consortium has established a set of goals to raise awareness among state residents about symptoms and screenings and the lower the percentages of cancers diagnosed in late stages.
Among its many objectives are to increase the percentages of:
- Georgians who get screened for lung cancer
- Women in Georgia who get screened for cervical cancer
- Women at high risk for breast cancer to get screened and have follow up visits
- Adolescents who get the HPV vaccine
The consortium also is working to close the disparity gap and make cancer care more accessible to all. Its goal is to reduce disparities by race, income level and insurance status for state residents diagnosed with the most common cancers, including lung, colorectal, breast, prostate and cervical.
City of Hope is committed to making cancer screening and diagnostic services available to more patients at its Atlanta Cancer Screening and Diagnostic Program, which offers:
- Breast cancer screening with digital breast tomosynthesis (DBT) for women
- Lung cancer screening with low-dose computed tomography
- Colorectal cancer screening with a colonoscopy
- Skin cancer screening in partnership with local dermatologists
- Undiagnosed Mass Program (UMAP), providing highly coordinated and expedited access to diagnostic services for all solid tumors
Speed to Care at City of Hope Atlanta
Speed to quality oncology care is a cornerstone of the patient care model at City of Hope. Throughout City of Hope’s nationwide network of cancer centers and outpatient care locations, patients experience reduced appointment delays and access to a personalized treatment plan within days, not weeks or months — with appointments available in as little as 24 hours and many treatment plans developed within 48 hours of the first consultation.
City of Hope Atlanta strategically collaborates with referring health care providers, wherever their patients live throughout the Southeast, to cut through procedural or logistic delays so patients can access the diagnostic and treatment services they need with the urgency their diagnosis requires — leveraging sophisticated diagnostic tools for accuracy and speed.
If you or a loved one has recently been diagnosed with cancer and are looking for a second opinion, call us 24/7 at 844-662-1190. Appointments may be available in as little as 24 hours.