Women with breast cancer may have better survival odds if they get surgery and chemotherapy more quickly, two large U.S. studies suggest.
The research team for the first study analyzed records from approximately 200,000 women to see how the time between diagnosis and surgery impacts survival.
The majority of women got surgery within 30 days of diagnosis. But, for each additional interval of waiting time, the risk of death rose by 9 to 10 percent. The increased risk was most pronounced for women with earlier stages of breast cancer.
The second study assessed how women fared depending on how long they waited after surgery to start chemotherapy.
Researchers found that women with delays of more than three months had a 34 percent increased risk of death, and 27 percent higher odds of dying from breast cancer, compared to women who started chemotherapy sooner.
