Patterns of multidisciplinary care in the management of non-metastatic invasive breast cancer in the United States Medicare patient.

ABSTRACT:

Purpose

Multidisciplinary care (MDC) in managing breast cancer is resource-intensive and growing in prevalence anecdotally, although care patterns are poorly characterized. We sought to determine MDC patterns and effects on care in the United States Medicare patient.

Methods

Patients diagnosed with non-metastatic invasive breast cancer from 1992-2009 were reviewed using the Survival, Epidemiology, and End Results (SEER)-Medicare linked dataset. MDC was defined as a post-diagnosis, preoperative visit with a surgical, medical, and radiation oncologist. Same-day MDC (MDC_SD) was the MDC subset having all three visits on one date.

Results

Among 88,865 patients, MDC was utilized in 2.9 %, with 14.1 % of these having MDC_SD. MDC use did not vary by stage

SUBMITTER: Churilla TM 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC5064835 | biostudies-literature | 2016 Nov

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature