Impact of Access to Breast Care For West Texas Program on Early Detection and Regional Breast Cancer Mortality

Abstract

Introduction This study aimed to assess whether the Access to Breast Care for West Texas (ABC4WT) program impacted regional breast cancer detection and mortality in the Texas Council of Governments (COG)1 region. Methods Interrupted time series analyses were utilized to evaluate the impact of the intervention. Spearman’s rank correlation and cross-orrelation analyses were performed to assess the relationship between the total number of screenings and (i) the total number of breast cancer detected and (ii) the proportion of early-stage cancer detected and the (pre-whitened) residuals. A three-way interaction model compared pre-and post-intervention mortality in COG 1 with the COG 9 region (control). Results Increased screening rate was associated with increased breast and early-stage cancer incidences ( P = .001 and P = .002, respectively). There were significant positive cross-correlations between the total number of screenings and the total number of breast cancer detected (r = .996) and the proportion of early-stage cancer detected (r = .709) without a lag even after pre-whitening. Univariate analysis showed that regional mortality decreased with time ( P < .001) and after intervention ( P = .001). Multivariate analysis did not show any significant difference in time ( P = .594), intervention ( P = .453), and time and intervention interaction ( P = .273). The three-way interaction model showed no difference in the baseline mortality and pre-intervention trend difference in COG 1 and COG 9 regions. However, there was a significant pre-post intervention trend difference in mortality COG 1 compared to the COG 9 region ( P = .041). Conclusion Implementing the ABC4WT program was associated with the early detection of breast cancer and reducing regional mortality in the COG 1 region.