Does Time To Treatment Initiation Affect Survival In Patients With Gallbladder Cancer?

e16600 Background: Gallbladder cancer (GBC) is the most aggressive malignancy of the biliary tract. Though rare, most diagnoses are made in advanced stages, which significantly impacts survival outcomes. In the U.S., only 20% of GBC cases are diagnosed early. In addition to late diagnosis, time to treatment initiation (TTI) after diagnosis may contribute to poor prognosis in GBC patients. The role TTI plays on survival is not well understood in patients with GBC. This study aimed to determine the effect of time to treatment initiation on overall survival and by stage. Methods: Data on 26,952 GBC patients from 2004 to 2012 were obtained from the National Cancer Database (NCDB). The primary outcome was overall survival in months. TTI was defined as the number of days between diagnosis and treatment initiation (surgery, chemotherapy, radiation). The Kaplan-Meier method was used to calculate survival estimates and Cox proportional hazards regression model to evaluate the effects of TTI (continuous variable) stratified by stage. Results: The overall median survival was 8.6 months (I.Q.R. = 2.6-23.9). The effect of TTI on survival (unadjusted Hazard Ration (UHR) 1.0 (p = < 0.0001)) was significant, but not after adjusting for other variables, (adjusted Hazard Ratio (AHR) 1.0 (p = 0.1506)). The trend was different across cancer stages. TTI showed a negative effect on survival in stages III (AHR: 1.00, p = 0.0083) and IV (AHR: 0.99, p < .0001). Other factors associated with lower survival are advanced stage, male, older age, comorbidity, community cancer facility, and whether a patient visited more than one facility for treatment. Conclusions: In general, time to treatment initiation did not affect survival but advanced stage lowered survival significantly. More attention should be given to patients who decide to seek second opinion at or those given treatment referrals to other facilities as the adjustments may contribute to delays in treatment initiation.