Does in-house availability of multidisciplinary teams increase survival in upper gastrointestinal-cancer?

Table 1 Cox proportional hazards model adjusted for age and the different regions

		MDT-No	MDT-Change	MDT-Yes	Rest of Norway
All UGI cancers	2000-2004	HR 0.96, (0.83-1.10)	HR 0.96, (0.82-1.13)	HR 0.901, (0.80-1.0)	HR 0.96, (0.83-1.11)
	2005-2008	HR 0.96, (0.82-1.13)	HR 0.811, (0.67-0.97)	HR 0.791, (0.70-0.89)	HR 0.851, (0.77-0.93)
Oesophagus	2000-2004	HR 0.75, (0.49-1.15)	HR 1.12, (0.75-1.68)	HR 0.86, (0.63-1.17)	HR 0.89, (0.73-1.1)
	2005-2008	HR 1.08, (0.72-1.61)	HR 0.601, (0.38-0.95)	HR 0.741, (0.53-1.02)	HR 0.84, (0.67-1.06)
Gastric	2000-2004	HR 0.94, (0.70-1.26)	HR 0.87 (0.66-1.15)	HR 0.99, (0.84-1.12)	HR 0.94, (0.70-1.25)
	2005-2008	HR 0.94, (0.70-1.23)	HR 0.631, (0.43-0.93)	HR 0.791, (0.65-0.97)	HR 0.821, (0.70-0.95)
Pancreas	2000-2004	HR 0.97, (0.79-1.2)	HR 1.04, (0.83-1.3)	HR 0.90, (0.77-1.06)	HR 1.02, (1.02-1.03)
	2005-2008	HR 0.92, (0.74-1.2)	HR 1.01, (0.78-1.3)	HR 0.841, (0.71-1.0)	HR 0.88, (0.78-1.0)

UGI: Upper gastrointestinal cancer; MDT: Multidisciplinary team. Hazard ratios (HR) are given with 95% confidence interval, and the county of Oslo with MDT-Mixed serves as reference.

¹Statistically significant with P-value < 0.05.

Table 2 Patient characteristics n(%)

	Diagnosed Jan 2000-Dec 2004						Diagnosed Jan 2005-Dec 2008
	MDT-Mix	MDT-No	MDT-Change	MDT-Yes	Other regions		MDT-Mix		MDT-No		MDT-Change		MDT-Yes		Other regions
Tumor type
Oesophagus	113 (15.4)	31 (11.8)	30 (14.6)	68 (10.0)	657 (12.9)		91 (15.2)		35 (16.2)		30 (19.6)		72 (12.8)		571 (14.1)
Gastric	258 (35.2)	110 (41.8)	77 (37.6)	318 (47.0)	2146 (42.2)		214 (35.8)		73 (33.8)		45 (29.4)		240 (42.6)		1534 (38.0)
Pancreas	362 (49.4)	122 (46.4)	98 (47.8)	291 (43.0)	2278 (44.8)		293 (49.0)		108 (50.0)		78 (51.0)		252 (44.7)		1935 (47.9)
Total	733 (100.0)	263 (100.0)	205 (100.0)	677 (100.0)	5081 (100.0)		598 (100.0)		216 (100.0)		153 (100.0)		564 (100.0)		4040 (100.0)
Stage
No metastasis	109 (14.9)	38 (14.4)	28 (13.7)	81 (12.0)	694 (13.7)		59 (9.9)		30 (13.9)		28 (18.3)		71 (12.6)		543 (13.4)
Lymph node metastasis	155 (21.1)	62 (23.6)	49 (23.9)	182 (26.9)	1195 (23.5)		125 (20.9)		52 (24.1)		44 (28.8)		141 (25.0)		926 (22.9)
Distant metastasis	293 (40.0)	104 (39.5)	85 (41.5)	303 (44.8)	2083 (41.0)		237 (39.6)		97 (44.9)		57 (37.3)		237 (42.0)		1642 (40.6)
Unknown	176 (24.0)	59 (22.4)	43 (21.0)	111 (16.4)	1109 (21.8)		177 (29.6)		37 (17.1)		24 (15.7)		115 (20.4)		929 (23.0)
Total	733 (100.0)	263 (100.0)	205 (100.0)	677 (100.0)	5081 (100.0)		598 (100.0)		216 (100.0)		153 (100.0)		564 (100.0)		4040 (100.0)

MDT: Multidisciplinary team. No clinically relevant differences in stage distribution were revealed among the analyzed regions or between the two calendar periods. In addition, there were no clinically relevant differences in stage distribution among the studied counties.