Multidisciplinary Breast Cancer Clinic: A Novel Approach to Decrease Time to Intervention

Abstract

Multidisciplinary clinics (MDCs) were created at high-volume surgical oncology centers to optimize breast cancer care, in which patients are seen by multiple subspecialists at one visit. We aim to evaluate our experience with this novel approach. We examined 492 patients with newly diagnosed invasive breast cancer from January 1, 2020, to September 1, 2022. Patients seen at our MDC had a decreased time to intervention across all measured intervals: 3 days faster (10 vs 13 days) from biopsy to clinic visit [t Sat 2.09 > t critical two tail 1.99], 5 days faster (23 vs 28 days) from diagnosis to initiation of neoadjuvant chemotherapy [t Sat 5.12 > t critical two tail 2.019], and 21 days faster (24 vs 45 days) from surgery clinic visit to operation [t Sat 5.12 > t critical two tail 2.019]. Although early in our experience, we have initiated a strategy for improved breast cancer care.

Keywords: breast; surgical oncology; surgical quality.