Table 3.

Effect of endoscopy wait-time on cancer stage. The results of an analysis of the effect of wait-time from receipt of referral to endoscopy on the presence of node positivity and distant metastatic disease are shown in the table. All included subjects were divided into two groups based on whether the time from referral to endoscopy was within guidelines (less than 60 days) or outside of guidelines (greater than 60 days). p values were calculated via chi-squared analysis. Of the total 246 included subjects, 94 subjects had cancer in resected lymph nodes; 21 subjects had evidence of distant metastases on staging CT scan. There was no significant effect of longer wait-times on presence of diseased lymph nodes or distant metastases.

Time to endoscopy	N	Node positivity (%)	p value	Distant mets (%)	p value
Within guidelines (<60 days)	102	42 (41)	0.42	12 (12)	0.13
Outside guidelines (>60 days)	144	52 (36)		9 (6)

mets: metastases.