Real world duration of curative intent breast, colorectal, non-small cell lung, and prostate cancer treatment

Background Advances in curative treatment for breast, colorectal, NSCLC and prostate cancer have led to improvements in cancer survival. Cancer treatment and recovery time can vary depending on the recommended modalities and intensity of therapy. Our objective was to determine the current real world duration of curative treatments for the four common cancers. Methods A retrospective review was completed of patients referred to BC Cancer from 2010 to 2016, ≤ 65 years old, newly diagnosed with stage I-III breast, colorectal, NSCLC or prostate cancer who received curative intent treatment. Information was collected on baseline characteristics, date of diagnosis, surgery, type, duration and intent of both radiotherapy and chemotherapy. Results In total, 22,275 patients were included: 55.7% breast, 22.4% colorectal, 9.2% NSCLC, 12.7% prostate cancer. Stage I/II/III at diagnosis: breast 47.2/38.7/14.1%, colorectal 26.5/30.1/43.5%, NSCLC 46.5/18.1/35.4%, prostate 7.7/62.9/29.4%. Patients treated with definitive surgery only: breast 35.9%, colorectal 58%, NSCLC 52.2%, prostate 40.1%. The median duration of multimodality treatment was breast 24.6 weeks, colorectal 26.7 weeks, NSCLC 9.1 weeks, and prostate 6.0 weeks. Conclusions Approximately half of patients who undergo curative cancer treatment require definitive radiotherapy or multimodality treatment. The median duration of therapy for the most commonly treated cancers ranged from 6.0–26.7 weeks. Multimodality curative treatment can be prolonged for selected cancers when accounting for the duration of adjuvant chemotherapy and radiotherapy and recovery time between modalities.