Allocating operating room resources to an acute care surgery service does not affect wait-times for elective cancer surgeries: a retrospective cohort study

Table 1 Recommended target wait times (days) for cancer operations based on assigned priority category, as established by the Cancer Care Ontario sub-committee on cancer wait times

Priority category	Clinical conditions	Consult to decision-to-treat*	Ready-to-treat to operation
P1	Patients requiring surgery to remove known or suspected cancers that have immediately life-threatening conditions (e.g., airway obstruction, hemorrhage, neurological compromise)	Immediate	Immediate
P2	Patients diagnosed with very aggressive tumours, such as central nervous system (CNS) cancer	14	14
P3	All patients with known or suspected invasive cancer that does not meet the criteria of urgency category II or IV	14	28
P4	Patients diagnosed with indolent tumours	14	84

*From the date of the patient’s first visit to the operating surgeon for this specific problem until the decision-to-treat date. The decision-to-treat date is the date on which sufficient pre-treatment testing is complete, the physician can reasonably assume that the patient will be treated, and the patient has agreed to the treatment. By this date, sufficient assessment will have been completed in order to reasonably assume that the procedure will go ahead, and an operating room booking is requested.

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