Does A Multidisciplinary Team Approach Affect Time To Treatment In Nsclc?

Introduction: Multidisciplinary team (MDT) is a model of care for patients with cancer providing better care and overall outcomes increasing the adherence to international guidelines (Freeman et al. European Journal of Cardio-thoracic Surgery 38;2010). In patients with advanced NSCLC molecular and immune-histochemical (IHC) tests are essential for personalized therapy possibly affecting the time from diagnosis to therapy (time to treatment, TTT) (Lim et al. Ann. Oncol. 26:2015;1415–1421). To our knowledge no study has verified whether an MDT approach can influence the TTT in patients with advanced NSCLC. Methods: We included all patients with advanced NSCLC referred to our Hospital in 2018 and 2019 with an indication for molecular and IHC assessment. The first group included patients whose treatment was established by a single specialist, as opposed to a second group of advanced NSLC patients treated with an MDT approach. We compared TTT of the two groups. Results: 197 patients were considered. In 107 patients (no-MDT-group) TTT was 39.5 days; patients managed by a MDT (MDT-group) had access to treatment within 38.6 days from diagnosis. The time between diagnosis and PDL-1, EGFR, ALK, ROS1 for both groups are reported in Tab1. Conclusion: An MDT approach does not affect TTT in patients with advanced NSCLC when molecular and IHC assessment was systematically introduced. A precise reorganization of patients flow might significantly reduce TTT.