Research Directorate, Saint Paul's Hospital Millennium Medical College, Addis Ababa, Ethiopia.
Gynecologist and Obstetrician, Saint Paul's Hospital Millennium Medical College, Addis Ababa, Ethiopia.
PLoS One. 2022 Jul 20;17(7):e0271604. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0271604. eCollection 2022.
Cervical cancer is a growing public health problem globally. Despite the availability of management options, the progression of the disease as a function of waiting time may challenge the effort to attain a desired outcome. There is a conflicting report on the role of waiting time to initiate an appropriate treatment in improving patients' survival.
This review aims to evaluate the association between delayed time to initiate any treatment indication with survival in patients with cervical cancer.
An internet-based literature search will be performed using text words, MESH terms and truncated words in databases, namely MEDLINE, Cochrane CENTRAL, EMBASE, Web of Science and Scopus. Grey literature searches in Google Scholar, Networked Digital Library of Theses and Dissertations (NDLTD) and Dissertations and Theses Global will be made. All articles published until 30th of December 2021 on human subjects will be searched without a language restriction. Studies which fulfil the inclusion criteria will be screened in full reading, selected, appraised and assessed for methodological quality by two independent reviewers. Data on participants, study methods, interventions, and outcomes will be abstracted. Included studies will be pooled for meta-analysis. Microsoft-Excel and R packages will be employed to carry out the statistical analysis. Heterogeneity will be assessed using Cochrane Q statistic, Tau2, and I2. Results will be reported as a function of 4-week delay in treatment initiation and the corresponding hazard ratio (HR) at 95% confidence interval. Statistical significance will be considered at P<0.05.
PROSPERO registration number: CRD42022299689.
宫颈癌是全球日益严重的公共卫生问题。尽管有多种治疗方法，但疾病的进展可能会挑战实现预期治疗效果的努力，尤其是等待时间的影响。关于等待时间对改善患者生存的适当治疗开始的影响存在相互矛盾的报告。
本综述旨在评估宫颈癌患者开始任何治疗指征的延迟时间与生存之间的关联。
将通过文本词、MESH 术语和数据库中的截断词（即 MEDLINE、Cochrane 中心、EMBASE、Web of Science 和 Scopus）进行基于互联网的文献检索。将在 Google Scholar、Networked Digital Library of Theses and Dissertations (NDLTD) 和 Dissertations and Theses Global 中进行灰色文献搜索。将搜索截至 2021 年 12 月 30 日在人类受试者上发表的所有无语言限制的文章。将筛选出符合纳入标准的全文进行筛选、选择、评估，并由两名独立评审员评估方法学质量。将提取参与者、研究方法、干预措施和结局的数据。将对纳入的研究进行汇总进行荟萃分析。将使用 Microsoft-Excel 和 R 包进行统计分析。将使用 Cochrane Q 统计量、Tau2 和 I2 评估异质性。结果将报告为治疗开始延迟 4 周和相应的 95%置信区间危险比（HR）的函数。将考虑 P<0.05 为统计学意义。
PROSPERO 注册号：CRD42022299689。
