Characterization of time toxicity in older patients with metastatic breast cancer

Abstract

Recognizing that receiving healthcare can be time intensive and burdensome, time toxicity has been conceptualized as the time spent by patients seeking healthcare. This study investigates the association between age at diagnosis and time toxicity for patients with Metastatic Breast Cancer (MBC) and identi es major components of care that confer the greatest time toxicity. MethodsWe conducted a retrospective cohort study among patients with MBC aged 67 or older using the SEER-Medicare database. We assessed time toxicity using the number of encounter days patients interacted with the healthcare system per 100 days, within the rst year of starting cancer treatment. We used a Poisson model to analyze the association between age and encounter days, adjusting for clinical and sociodemographic factors. We strati ed the mean encounter days for each age cohort by treatment types.