Time toxicity

Health Care Contact Days in Older Adults with Metastatic Cancer

https://tinyurl.com/yjwcbcpn

Sometimes health care professionals forget or fail to recognise the impact a cancer diagnosis can have on the lifestyle of the individual affected. This retrospective study looked at the Medicare reference data for more than 50000 patients with metastatic cancer of varying types, with a comparison of the number of healthcare contact days in 2008 to the same period in 2019.

Findings from the study showed a significant change with the mean number of contact days increasing by about 50% to around 62 days each year. For some cancers, notably breast cancer, the contact days increased even more sharply.

This represents 16% or more of an individual’s already limited life expectancy; this burden on cancer patients has been labelled “time toxicity”. The authors suggest this information should be included in informed consent communication and that attempts to reduce the number of contact days, by arranging same-day appointments would improve the quality of life for cancer patients.