Access of patients with breast and lung cancer to chemotherapy treatment in public and private hospitals in the city of Buenos Aires

Abstract

Abstract Objectives Describe the time elapsed from the diagnosis to treatment with chemotherapy for patients with breast and lung cancer at public and private hospitals in Buenos Aires. Design Retrospective cohort study. Setting Three public and three private academic hospitals in Buenos Aires. Participants Patients with breast (n = 168) or lung cancer (n = 100) diagnosis treated with chemotherapy. Main outcomes measures Clinical and sociodemographic data were collected in a stratified sample. We used the Kaplan–Meier estimator to analyse the time elapsed and the log rank test to compare both groups Results For breast cancer patients, median time elapsed between diagnosis and treatment with chemotherapy was 76 days (95% CI: 64–86) in public and 60 days (95% CI: 52–65) in private hospitals (P = 0.0001). For adjuvant and neoadjuvant treatments, median time was 130 (95% CI: 109–159) versus 64 (95% CI: 56–73) days (P < 0.0001) and 57 days (95% CI: 49–75) versus 26 (95% CI: 16–41) days, respectively (P = 0.0002). There were no significant differences in the time from first consultation to diagnosis. In patients with lung cancer, median time from diagnosis to treatment was 71 days (95% CI: 60–83) in public hospitals and 31 days (95% CI: 24–39) in private hospitals (P = 0.0002). In the metastatic setting, median time to treatment was 63 days (95% CI: 45–83) in public and 33 (95% CI: 26–44) days in private hospitals (P = 0.005). Conclusions There are significant disparity in the access to treatment with chemotherapy for patients in Buenos Aires, Argentina.