2022 Volume 30 Issue 2 Pages 85-92
Introduction: Reducing “patient delay” in upper aerodigestive tract cancer (UADTC) is critical to improving patient prognosis and quality of life. The objective of this study was to assess “patient delay” and identify the association between this delay and other factors such as socio-economic, clinical, and traditional medicine use.
Methods: A cross-sectional study was conducted at Sidi Mohammed Ben Abdellah National Institute of Oncology in Rabat, Morocco. A consecutive series of patients with UADTC were selected. “patient delay” was calculated using the date of the patients’ awareness of the symptoms and the date of the first medical consultation. A multivariate binary logistic regression analysis was performed to measure the association between other different factors and “patient delay”.
Results: 201 patients were selected for this study. 65.7% of the patients were male, 79.4% were diagnosed with stage III or IV, the median of the patient’s delay was 120 days, 57.7% of them had a long “patient delay”. In addition, 60.2% of patients used traditional medicine, of which 57.0% had already used it before the first consultation. Multivariate analysis revealed that the use of traditional medicine for more than 15 days (p = 0.017) was a risk factor for “patient delay”, whereas medium or high socio-economic status (p = 0.045) and malignant interpretation of the patient’s symptoms (p = 0.008) were protective factors.
Conclusion: Our results will help to understand the individual and collective factors that may explain the issue of “patient delay”, which is a critical parameter in the early diagnosis and prevention of mortality from UADTC.
