Access to cancer care can be just as important as the care itself, new paper says

The first step in addressing cancer is getting to your doctors’ appointments. But that’s not so easy for some patients. Health-related social risks, which can be as simple as whether you have a ride to get to the doctor, increasingly are being recognized as affecting cancer outcomes.

“Food, transportation and housing are probably the three most prevalent health-related social risks, and they often co-occur,” said MUSC Hollings Cancer Center researcher Evan Graboyes, M.D. “And when patients with cancer are affected by them, we know that that leads to worse cancer outcomes. I think it's recognizing that these are factors that have nothing to do with the biology of cancer, or the way the immunotherapy is actually working, but they’re still critically important factors to consider to ensure that patients with cancer have the best outcomes. Unfortunately, differences in health-related social risks between certain groups are a major reason why we see such disparities in outcomes.”