Waiting times for prostate cancer: a review

Abstract

Prostate cancer is one of the most common diagnosed cancer in men and the waiting time has become an important issue not only for clinical reasons, but mostly for the psychological implications on patients. The aim of our study was to review and analyze the literature on waiting times for prostate cancer. In February-March 2019 we performed a search for original peer-reviewed papers in the electronic database PubMed (MEDLINE). The key search terms were “prostate cancer AND waiting list”, “prostate cancer AND waiting times”. We included in our narrative review articles in Italian, English or French, published in 2009-2019 containing original data about the waiting times for prostate cancer. The literature search yielded 680 publications. Finally, we identified 8 manuscripts eligible for the review. The articles were published between 2010 and 2019; the studies involved a minimum of 16 to a maximum of 95,438 participants. Studies have been conducted in 6 countries. The waiting times from cancer suspicion to histopathological diagnosis and to treatment had an important reduction in the last years, and this constant decrease could lead to an increase of patients' satisfaction.