Dissecting the Prediagnostic Journey to Identify Opportunities for Early Detection of Esophageal Cancer: Findings From a High-Risk Area in Rural China.

Purpose: Survival from esophageal cancer (EC) is poor, partly reflecting the delay in diagnosis. To inform the potential measures for downstaging the disease, we estimated diagnosis delay, that is, the length of interval from symptom-to-diagnosis (STD), and investigated its correlates among patients with EC in a high-risk resource-limited rural area in China.

Methods: Patients newly diagnosed with EC (N = 411) were recruited in a secondary hospital in Henan province in China between August 1, 2018, and October 21, 2020. A face-to-face structured questionnaire was used to collect patient-level and health-seeking data from patients and/or proxies. Association between the length of STD interval and stage at diagnosis was examined using logistic regression. Correlates of the length of the STD interval were identified using negative binomial regression.

Results: The median STD interval was 61 (IQR, 24-155) days, with the time from symptom onset to first health care contact representing 90.1% (IQR, 7.8%-100%) of its length. The odds of being diagnosed at stages III-IV increased by 3% (age- and sex-adjusted odds ratio, 1.03 [95% CI, 0.99 to 1.08]) for every 2-month increase in the STD interval. Higher awareness of EC risk factors was associated with shorter STD intervals (incidence rate ratio [95% CI] for awareness score ≥2 ≤0: 0.65 [0.46 to 0.93]), whereas patients who first visited secondary or tertiary/cancer hospitals had much longer STD intervals than those who first visited a primary health care facility (1.69 [1.19 to 2.40]; 2.22 [1.24 to 3.97]).

Conclusion: The median length of the STD interval was 2 months, but with considerable interindividual variability. Improving EC awareness, coupled with effective referral pathways, may promote timely diagnosis of this disease.