ArticleJournal of global oncology2017
Cancer Pathology Turnaround Time at Queen Elizabeth Central Hospital, the Largest Referral Center in Malawi for Oncology Patients.
Article in Journal of global oncology, 2017. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 17 papers.
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Who cites it
17 citing papers in PubMed, 33 citations in OpenAlex.
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- Efforts to strengthen anatomic pathology diagnostic services for cancer in sub-Saharan Africa: a scoping review protocol.BMJ open · 2025Article
- Widefield frequency-domain autofluorescence lifetime imaging for detecting breast cancer in murine xenograft tumor tissues.Journal of biomedical optics · 2025Article
- Assessment of Turnaround Time (TAT) for Oral Squamous Cell Carcinoma Biopsies: A Single-Institution Experience.Cureus · 2024Article
- HHV8-Associated Multicentric Castleman Disease: A Case Report on a Rare Complication of HIV in a Low-Income Setting.Research and reports in tropical medicine · 2024Article
- Management ofEcancermedicalscience · 2024Review
- Clinical application of circulating cell-free lymphoma DNA for fast and precise diagnosis of Burkitt lymphoma: Precision medicine for sub-Saharan Africa.Cambridge prisms. Precision medicine · 2023Review
- Article
- Cervical cancer diagnosis and treatment delays in the developing world: Evidence from a hospital-based study in Zambia.Gynecologic oncology reports · 2021Article
- Statistical Process Control Charts for Monitoring Next-Generation Sequencing and Bioinformatics Turnaround in Precision Medicine Initiatives.Frontiers in oncology · 2021Article
- Study protocol for a single-centre observational study of household wellbeing and poverty status following a diagnosis of advanced cancer in Blantyre, Malawi -Wellcome open research · 2020Article
- Dermatology-Driven Quality Improvement Interventions to Decrease Diagnostic Delays for Kaposi Sarcoma in Botswana.Journal of global oncology · 2019Article
- Pathology and cancer in Africa.Ecancermedicalscience · 2019Article
- Evaluating the use of pathology in improving diagnosis in rural Malawi.Malawi medical journal : the journal of Medical Association of Malawi · 2018Article
- Breast Cancer Pathology Turnaround Time in Botswana.Journal of global oncology · 2018Article
- Decreasing Histology Turnaround Time Through Stepwise Innovation and Capacity Building in Rwanda.Journal of global oncology · 2018Article
- Breast Cancer in Low- and Middle-Income Countries: Why We Need Pathology Capability to Solve This Challenge.Clinics in laboratory medicine · 2018Review
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Authors and funding
4 authors at 1 institution in 1 country.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
Purpose In all settings, a need exists for expedited pathology processing for patients with a suspected cancer diagnosis. In low- and middle-income countries (LMICs) with limited resources, processing pathology samples is particularly challenging, so the measurement of turnaround times (TATs) for pathology results is an important quality metric. We explored the pathology TAT for suspected cancer patients at Queen Elizabeth Central Hospital in Malawi to determine whether a difference exists when patients paid an out-of-pocket fee (paid for [PF] v nonpaid for [NPF]) to facilitate sample processing. Methods and Population This retrospective descriptive study included all patients with suspected cancer (N = 544) who underwent incisional and excisional biopsy in 2010 at Queen Elizabeth Central Hospital, a teaching hospital in Malawi. Data were abstracted from patient charts and administrative forms to build a database and determine the TAT for PF and NPF samples. Results The median TAT for the 544 patients was 71 days (interquartile range [IQR], 31 to 118 days). The median pathology processing time was 31 days (IQR, 15 to 52 days) and was shorter for PF versus NPF samples. The median TAT was 43 days for PF samples (IQR, 27 to 69 days) versus 101 days for NPF samples (IQR, 31 to 118 days), which was significantly different by the Wilcoxon rank sum test ( P < .01). Conclusion The TAT for pathology samples among patients with suspected cancer was longer than reported for other African countries during the study period, was longer than considered acceptable in high-income countries, and differed between PF and NPF samples.
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