Sucharu Prakash, Director of Quality Services at Texas Oncology, shared a post on LinkedIn:
“It’s a CRISIS! Cancer Treatment Delays have reached a flash point! Time to act is NOW! 60 days- average time between diagnosis and starting treatment. This is unacceptable! Needs system Redesign.
Time to Treatment is one of the most critical yet consistently overlooked – metrics in oncology care.
Despite advances in diagnostics, therapeutics, and precision medicine, time to treatment in the US remains unacceptably long. These delays are costing lives.
For patients, every additional day amplifies anxiety, uncertainty, and loss of trust while disease biology continues to evolve.
Reasons for these delays are multifactorial – cost/ insurance delay/system backlog/access issues.
From a clinical perspective, prolonged time to treatment can directly impact outcomes:
- Tumor progression and stage migration.
- Decline in performance status.
- Loss of eligibility for curative intent or clinical trials.
- Missed windows for biomarker-driven or targeted therapy.
In the era of precision oncology, time to treatment is no longer just an operational metric – it is a quality and equity imperative.
Solution – intentional system redesign:
- Streamlined diagnostic and referral pathways.
- Rapid biomarker and genomic testing workflows.
- Multidisciplinary coordination that starts before pathology is final.
- Proactive financial clearance and access support.
- Real-time data tracking with leadership accountability.
When we shorten time to treatment, we don’t just improve efficiency – we improve outcomes, patient experience, and trust in the cancer care system.
The question for us in leadership positions is no longer whether time to treatment matters. It’s why we continue to tolerate delays we know harm patients.
Because in oncology, time is not neutral. Time is biology. Time is access. Time is equity.”
Title: Time-to-Treatment Initiation and Its Effect on All-Cause Mortality: Insights From the Surveillance, Epidemiology, and End Results Database
Authors: Song Peng Ang, Eunseuk Lee, Jia Ee Chia, Maya Iglesias, Mariela Di Vanna, Shreya Shambhavi, Jose Iglesias
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