ArticleJTCVS open2026
Achieving timely treatment for early-stage non-small cell lung cancer: Factors associated with delayed surgical resection and proposed quality benchmarks.
Article in JTCVS open, 2026. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Not yet cited in PubMed.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
0 citing papers in PubMed.
No citing paper in PubMed yet.
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
9 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
Objective: Timely care is a key quality indicator. Resection delayed beyond 8 weeks for early-stage non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) negatively impacts prognosis, yet diagnosis-to-treatment time has steadily increased. We sought to identify drivers of delayed surgical resection and generate evidence for timeliness metrics for optimal outcomes. Methods: We evaluated patient-level factors associated with delayed versus timely surgery (>8 vs ≤8 weeks after diagnosis) for clinical stage I-II NSCLC between 2009 and 2019. Factors were identified by estimating adjusted relative risks (aRRs) and 95% CIs using modified Poisson regression. Time to process-level steps from diagnosis, along with the number and combination of these steps, were examined by timeliness of surgery. Results: Among 2567 patients, 46.0% received timely surgery. Factors associated with delayed surgery included Black (aRR, 1.14; 95% CI, 1.02-1.27) and Asian (aRR, 1.14; 95% CI, 1.00-1.29) race, distance to surgical facility of >50 miles (aRR, 1.23; 95% CI, 1.08-1.40), and greater health care use (≥25 visits, aRR, 1.72; 95% CI, 1.53-1.93). More preoperative steps increased time to surgery, but no individual step drove delays. When performed, preoperative steps occurred within the following intervals in 75% of timely surgery recipients: positron emission tomography-computed tomography: 21 days, biopsy: 20 days, pulmonary function tests: 28 days, and thoracic surgery consult: 30 days. Conclusions: As health system and oncologic care processes grow in complexity, timely treatment warrants greater attention. Our results from an integrated health system indicate several patient- and process-level factors contribute to delays that can be mitigated and offer preliminary benchmarks to promote timely NSCLC management.
Indexed as
Identifiers
What OpenQuestion holds
Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.