Factors affecting lung cancer stage at diagnosis and receipt of surgery in Ontario: A population-based analysis

Nader M Hanna, Saad Shakeel, Gileh-Gol Akhtar-Danesh, Noori Akhtar-Danesh and Christian Finley

PLOS ONE, 2026, vol. 21, issue 7, 1-12

Abstract: Lung cancer is the leading cause of cancer mortality in Canada, with most cases diagnosed at advanced stage. Despite universal healthcare, social determinants of health may impact stage at diagnosis and access to treatment. We examined the association between these factors, stage at diagnosis, and receipt of surgery in Ontario. We conducted a population-based retrospective cohort study of adults diagnosed with lung cancer in Ontario from 2007–2023 using linked administrative health data. Stage was obtained from the Ontario Cancer Registry. Factors included income, primary care attachment, immigration status, geographic region, and distance to the nearest cancer centre. Logistic regression identified factors associated with stage IV diagnosis. Among 106,867 patients with available stage data, 52.6% were diagnosed with stage IV disease; 19.1% were stage I. Patients without a family physician were significantly more likely to present with stage IV cancer compared with those fully rostered (62.1% vs 51.5%; adjusted OR 1.55, p

Date: 2026
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0354330 (text/html)
https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article/file?id= ... 54330&type=printable (application/pdf)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:plo:pone00:0354330

DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0354330

Access Statistics for this article

More articles in PLOS ONE from Public Library of Science
Bibliographic data for series maintained by plosone ().