Treatment Delay in Orthopedic Tumors

Orthopedic tumors are most commonly seen in the young adults. Treatment delay in these important entities could have significant adverse effects on human communities. Our goal in this review is the evaluation of patients with benign and malignant orthopedic tumors to identify the main causes of delay in the presentation and treatment of such tumors. In this cross sectional study, we evaluated cases with potentially important orthopaedic tumors from December 2008 to June 2010. Treatment delay was divided into two parts; (1) patient delay, and (2) physician delay. In identifying the patient delay, the respective declaration was noted but in exploring the main causes of physician delay, the time to get complementary imaging or laboratory exams and in some cases interview with the primary physician were taken into account. We studied 200 cases (108 males and 92 females) with a mean age of 27.4 years, ranged 6 to 62 years. The median patient and physician delay was 8 months (ranged 0.5 to 120) and 4 months (ranged 0.5 to 84), respectively. Total median treatment delay was 12 months. The most common cause of patient and physician delay was assuming trivial the early symptoms of tumor and not timely complementary imaging, accordingly. Public education about early symptoms of orthopedic tumors and promotion of general practitioners’ knowledge to follow timely and proper use of complementary imaging seem to have significant effects on reducing the treatment delay in these tumors.