Clinical interval and diagnostic characteristics in a cohort of bladder cancer patients in Spain: a multicenter observational study

We performed a cohort study in seven hospitals in Spain to determine the clinical characteristics of incident patients with bladder cancer, the diagnostic process, and the conditions that might affect health care interval times.

314 patients with bladder cancer were included, 70.3 (Standard Deviation [SD] 11.2) years old and 85.0% male. Clinical stage was T1 in 45.9% of patients. The median interval time between first consultation and diagnosis was of 104.0 days (Inter quartile range [IQR]:112.0; range from 0 to 986), being shorter for those patients who attended a hospital for their first consultation. The median interval time between diagnosis and first treatment was of 0.0 days (IQR: 0.0; range from 0 to 366), being longer when the patient had a pathologic tumor stage ≥ T2a.

BMC research notes. 2017 Dec 07*** epublish ***

Xavier Bonfill, María José Martinez-Zapata, Robin W M Vernooij, María José Sánchez, María Morales Suárez-Varela, Javier De la Cruz, José Ignacio Emparanza, Montserrat Ferrer, José Ignacio Pijoan, Joan Palou, Stefanie Schmidt, Eva Madrid, Víctor Abraira, Javier Zamora, EMPARO-CU study group

CIBER de Epidemiología y Salud Pública (CIBERESP), Barcelona, Spain., CIBER de Epidemiología y Salud Pública (CIBERESP), Barcelona, Spain. ., Iberoamerican Cochrane Centre, Institute of Biomedical Research Sant Pau (IIB Sant Pau), Barcelona, Spain., Fundació Puigvert, Barcelona, Spain., Health Services Research Group, IMIM (Hospital del Mar Medical Research Institute), Barcelona, Spain., Iberoamerican Cochrane Centre, Barcelona, Spain.