12 Month Survival For Oncology Patients With Versus Without Patient Navigation

6510 Background: Oncology patient navigation (PN) programs have been developed to improve outcomes and reduce disparities. Few data exist to describe the effect of PN on key clinical outcomes, such as survival. Methods: A nurse-led PN program was initiated at an academic, multi-site community-based cancer institute in Jan 2013. PN comprised regular in-person and virtual interactions and coordination of diagnosis, management and complication follow up. We conducted a retrospective cohort study of adults ( ≥ 18yrs) diagnosed with first primary cancer from Jan 2013-Dec 2014 to assess survival between patients who did and did not receive PN. For adequate numbers of events during available follow up, we analyzed patients diagnosed with any of 8 cancers with poor relative survival, according to American Cancer Society statistics, and with sufficient data for analysis (acute myeloid leukemia, esophagus, liver, lung, myeloma, ovary, pancreas, stomach). Nearest neighbor with caliper propensity score (PS) matching was used to match PN to similar non navigated standard of care (SC) patients. PN were excluded if no similar SC match existed. Electronic medical record and tumor registry data were queried for outcome parameters. Survival was censored at 12 mo for all patients in view of established median survival data. Cox regression was used to evaluate the effect of PN on 12 mo survival. Results: Of 2308 eligible patients (477 PN, 1831 SC), 408 (86%) PN were PS matched to 408 similar SC (816 total) with balanced demographic (age, sex, race, ethnicity, insurance, marital status, employment, rurality) and tumor characteristics (site, stage, grade, vascular invasion, metastases), receipt and nature of treatment, and overall health (comorbidities, inpatient stay 12 mo before diagnosis) between groups. 229 (28%) patients died within 12 mo of diagnosis (PN = 25% SC = 30%; p = 0.13). PN had median 12 mo survival of 355 days compared to 329 days among SC (p = 0.06). Cox regression showed SC had higher odds of death 12 mo from diagnosis (HR = 1.34 95%CI = 1.01-1.78). Conclusions: In a large, diverse PS matched cohort, PN patients had improved 12 mo survival. Further research is needed to confirm long term survival and value proposition benefit and explore subgroup differences.