Assessment of possible delays in referrals, diagnostics procedures and first treatment in Slovenian bladder and kidney cancer

The average annual incidence of kidney cancer in Slovenia is 370, and the incidence of bladder cancer is 320. Consortium of three research organizations: the Institute of Oncology Ljubljana, Department of Family Medicine, University of Ljubljana and the Clinical Department of Urology at the University Clinical Center Ljubljana, launched the project Comprehensive analysis of management of urological cancer patients with an assessment of possible delays in referrals, realization of diagnostics procedures and first treatment in 2017. Its main objective was to retrospectively analyse the health care of Slovenian patients with cancer of the kidney, bladder or prostate. The study included all Slovenian patients diagnosed in 2014. This article presents the results of an assessment of delays in referrals, diagnostics procedures and first treatment in bladder and kidney cancer patients. The median system interval (time from first examinations to initiation of treatment) was 35 days in patients with bladder cancer and 22 days in patients with kidney cancer. In both cases, the greatest amount of time elapsed between the first diagnostic procedures and the first specialist visit what points to a bottleneck in performing diagnostic procedures at both the primary and secondary levels of our health system.