Healing Connections

As our population ages and senior citizens become a larger demographic, cancer researchers are focusing on the links between aging and cancer. Studies presented at the 2008 Annual Meeting of the American Association for Cancer Research, April 12 - 16, highlight the biological aspects of aging that are key to greater risk and poorer prognosis, and surgical outcomes.

Although fewer of them undergo surgery, lung cancer patients in their 80s fare equally well following surgery as their younger counterparts, researchers report. The findings offer doctors potentially valuable guidance in treatment options for elderly patients, according to researchers.

A research team from the Hoag Cancer Center in Newport Beach, California, observed 1,293 patients with lung cancer, 482 of whom underwent surgical treatment. The oldest patients were more likely to be male. Older patients were also more likely to have localized disease.

Overall, the rate of surgery did not differ by age group. However, when primary lung cancer was considered separately, only 31.7 percent of patients older than 80 underwent surgery for their primary lung cancer compared with 38.5 percent of patients younger than 80. For patients with non-small cell lung cancer, the rate of surgery was 64 percent for those older than 80 and 83 percent for those younger than 80. For patients with regionally advanced disease, the rate of surgery for patients age 80 or older was 35 percent compared with 49 percent for those younger than 80 years old.

The five-year survival rate following surgery was 62 percent for those patients older than 80 compared with 53 percent for those aged 70 to 79 years. Among patients age 60 to 69 years and 50 to 59 years, the survival rate was 63 percent. For the youngest patients, those younger than 50, the survival rate was 79 percent.

“Although a smaller proportion of patients over the age of 80 underwent this type of surgery, their survival rate was comparable to the younger age groups,” said lead author Robert O. Dillman, M.D., medical director of the Hoag Cancer Center in Newport Beach, California.