Author: Aliyah King, Olivier Brandts-Longtin, Chandy Somayaji, James Ted McDonald, Heidi Li, Katherine Aw, Rebecca Lau, Alex Lee, Boaz Wong, Elysia Grose, Ahmad Abed, James Stevenson, Rahat Sheikh, Stephanie Johnson-Obaseki, Carolyn Nessim
Year: 2025
Category:
Health Publications
People’s social and economic circumstances can influence when cancers are detected and how they are treated. In Canada’s publicly funded healthcare system, it is important to understand whether these factors are linked to differences in melanoma outcomes.
This study looked at nearly 1,000 patients who had surgery for melanoma at The Ottawa Hospital between 1999 and 2023. Researchers used neighbourhood income information based on postal codes and estimated distance from the hospital to examine how these factors were related to stage at diagnosis, survival, and time to recurrence.
The study found that people living in higher-income neighbourhoods were less likely to be diagnosed with stage II-IV melanoma than those in lower-income neighbourhoods. Income level and distance from the hospital were not associated with survival or time to recurrence. Females had longer time to recurrence and lower odds of advanced-stage disease. These findings show that differences exist in stage at diagnosis even within a universal healthcare system.
