Abstract
Background Socioeconomic disparities impact access to treatment and outcomes for patients with cancer. Affordable Care Act (ACA) sought to mitigate some of these disparities In the present study, we examined the influence of socioeconomic factors on patients facing delay in treatment initiation and the impact of Affordable Care Act (ACA). Methods We queried the National Cancer Database (NCDB) for patients with MM (ICD-0-3 code 9732) diagnosed from 2004-2016 who received any therapy.
Active MM patients were defined as those treated within 120 days of diagnosis. Time to initiation (TTI) was defined as time in days (d) from diagnosis of cancer to initial myeloma therapy and divided into quartiles. Patients belonging to 4th quartile for TTI constituted the delayed treatment group (delayed-TTI). Study period was divided into pre-ACA and post-ACA using 2010 as cut-off. Multivariate logistic regression analysis was used and p-value 0.05 was used for statistical significance. Results We identified 65,723 patients meeting the eligibility criteria (28,814 pre-ACA and 36,909 post-ACA respectively). Median age was 68 (Interquartile Range IQR 59-76) years, included 55.1% males and majority insured patients (96.4%). Racial distribution was 66%(non hispanic whites-NHW), 20%(non hispanic blacks-NHB), 6%(Hispanics-H).
Median TTI were 13 (IQR 5-27) days overall and 42 (33-58) days for delayed-TTI group. NHB and H races were associated with delayed-TTI in the multivariate model - Odds Ratio OR 1.18 (IQR 1.09-1.27)p-value <0.005 pre-ACA vs. 1.17 (1.09-1.25) p-value<0.005 post-ACA for NHB and OR 1.22 (1.07-1.38) p-value0.003 pre-ACA that became non-significant post-ACA for H. Treatment at comprehensive community cancer center – OR 0.79 (0.74-0.84),p-value<0.005 or academic research center -0.92 (0.86-0.98) were associated with lower OR for delayed-TTI while insurance status was not significant in the overall analysis. Conclusion Contemparory results from the present study demonstrate that racial minority status may be a predisposing factor to delay in treatment initiation. While the ACA has been shown to help mitigate this in certain cancer categories, the effect is still limited among MM patients.
Citation Format: Thejus Jayakrishnan, Veli Bakalov, Natalie Callander, Santhosh Sadashiv, Sikander Ailawadhi. Impact of the Affordable Care Act on timeliness to treatment for patients with multiple myeloma [abstract]. In: Proceedings of the AACR Virtual Conference: Thirteenth AACR Conference on the Science of Cancer Health Disparities in Racial/Ethnic Minorities and the Medically Underserved; 2020 Oct 2-4. Philadelphia (PA): AACR; Cancer Epidemiol Biomarkers Prev 2020;29(12 Suppl):Abstract nr PO-204.
