Table 2.

Patient and facility characteristics associated with time to diagnosis for VA colorectal cancer patients: unadjusted median time to diagnosis and adjusted delay factor from multivariable Cox PH analysis

Characteristic	Median Days to Diagnosis	Delay Factor^	95% CI	P- value*
Age in decades		1.15	1.05–1.27	0.003
Caucasian Race	75	0.91	0.75–1.12	0.39
(reference = Non-Caucasian)	85
Diagnostic Category (reference=Screen-Detected)	91			0.84ϒ
Bleeding-Detected	74	0.97	0.76–1.24	0. 83
Other	73	0.93	0.74-1.17	0.55
Comorbidity (ACE-27; reference=none)	41			0.005ϒ
Mild	98	1.69	1.27–2.26	<0.001
Moderate	77	1.38	1.00–1.91	0.05
Severe	86	1.38	1.00– 1.90	0.05
Geographic Region (reference=Atlantic)	115			<0.001ϒ
West-Midwest	58	0.61	0.47–0.78	<0.001
South	81	0.67	0.53–0.86	<0.001

^*P-value based on multivariable Cox proportional hazards regression model; gender, education, race, income and marital status were not included in the multivariable model. Final N for model was n=447.

^{^}Delay Factor is mathematically equal to the inverse of the hazard ratio and is intended to provide a more meaningful clinical interpretation of the impact of characteristics on the outcome; a delay factor greater than 1 indicates a longer time to diagnosis.

^ϒP-value for the aggregate effect (type 3 Wald statistic) of characteristic on outcome.

The proportional hazards assumption was checked and not violated.

Abbreviations: VA, Veteran’s Affairs; CI, confidence interval; ACE, Adult Comorbidity Evalutation-27 Scale [10].