Article Text
Abstract
Objectives The aim of this study is to assess the management of patients affected by ovarian cancer at first diagnosis in the Oncological Network of Piedmont and Valle d’Aosta.
Specific objectives of this audit are: description of first line treatment, evaluation of adherence to international guidelines, description of overall survival and assessment of clinical and organisational factors that could influence the outcome.
Methods This audit includes a retrospective and a prospective part. The retrospective analysis concerns incident cases between January and June 2016, which are useful to describe structure and process indicators at baseline.
The prospective anlysis concerns patients with ovarian cancer treated in the hospitals of the oncological network from May 2017 until today and will last three years. The outcomes are shared with the operators every six months.
Results There has been a significant improvement in adherence to the correct treatment pathways: the percentage of patients following the correct diagnostic-therapeutic pathway increased from 2.3% in 2015 to 68.2% in 2017 with a further improvement in the last year. Focusing on retrospective analysis, a comparison with a similar previous study (COROP 2009) shows a centralisation of treatments, an increase in early diagnosis, a better adherence to protocols with a significant improvement in overall survival.
Conclusions Retrospective data showed an improvement in care pathways confirmed by a preliminary analysis of prospective data. If these results will be confirmed at the end of the Audit, it could be possibile to exporting this system also outside the Oncological Network in order to set improvement strategies.