More People Getting Cancer Care Outside the Hospital

Even though more people need cancer treatment, there isn’t much research tracking how often they actually visit outpatient oncology clinics. The focus has been on how many new cases appear each year, not on the real‑world use of clinic services.

We looked at every adult aged 18 or older who was diagnosed with one of seven common solid cancers—lung, colon, rectal, pancreas, breast, melanoma or prostate—between January 2015 and December 2022. These records came from the Ontario Cancer Registry and were linked with administrative data that show each patient’s first oncology appointment and any follow‑up visits in the first two years.

During that period the total number of patients grew to about 332,600, and the yearly rise in new cancer diagnoses went from roughly 39,700 in 2015 to about 45,000 in 2022. While the percentage of patients who had a first oncology consult rose only a little, the absolute count of those initial visits jumped by around 3,600 each year. Follow‑up appointments increased by roughly 43,000 annually, and the number of systemic therapy sessions went up by about 36,000 each year.

These numbers show that outpatient oncology services are being used more heavily than before. Because of this surge, health planners need new, data‑driven workforce models that can handle the complexity of modern cancer care outside the hospital.