Faster Diagnosis For Breast Cancer

Researchers from The George Washington University published a study showing that breast cancer patients can reduce potentially dangerous delays in the identification of breast cancer with the assistance of patient navigation services. Patient navigation - a service that helps patients overcome barriers to getting health care, including setting up appointments, dealing with health insurance, and helping with fears about cancer - led to a nearly four-fold reduction in the time it took to diagnose a suspicious breast lump, the new study found.

Previous research had suggested that navigation services can help women, especially low-income women, overcome obstacles that might result in long lags in diagnosis and treatment of breast cancer. Breast cancer kills more than 40,000 women every year in the United States and is a particular problem in the District of Columbia - a city that struggles with one of the highest breast cancer death rates in the nation. 

Navigators in the study were trained to deal with a lack of insurance, childcare difficulties and other barriers that can mean missed medical appointments and a delay in the provision of care. In some cases, women who do not get this extra help wait so long that a small and treatable cancer grows and becomes difficult, if not impossible, to stop. 

The researchers discovered that patient navigation services shaved days off the time it took to get a diagnosis. For example, women in the navigated group had a mean diagnosis time for breast cancer of just 25 days. In contrast, women in the control group waited an average of 42 days to receive a diagnosis, a delay that slows down the next step - initiation of treatment: surgery, chemotherapy, radiation therapy or other treatments that can prevent the cancer from spreading. 

But this study also suggests that navigation services can also overcome other obstacles to care - such as the lack of health insurance. In fact, the team found that women without insurance who had the help of a navigator were significantly more likely to get a timely diagnosis compared to uninsured women who did not get navigation. Hoffman says uninsured women often have trouble finding health care providers who will treat them and they also face other barriers to care, including a lack of transportation to the clinic or childcare.

October is National Breast Cancer Awareness month.

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Presented By:
Jim Bennett
Bennett Insurance Group
623-979-4140
http://jimbennettinsurance.com
jim@jimbennettinsurance.com