Communicating cancer diagnosis and prognosis: When the target is the elderly patient-a GIOGer study

Background: Effective communication to cancer patients allows better emotional response to diagnosis, coping with health professionals and compliance to treatment. We lack specific studies on patterns of clinical communication in elderly patients, their involvement in decision making and the role of their families. Patients and methods: Structured interviews to collect information on diagnosis and prognosis disclosure, satisfaction with information, compliance to disease experience and willingness toward receiving more information and coping, were administered to patients age 65 years and older and receiving chemotherapy. Results: Six hundred and twenty two patients completed the interviews and were evaluated. Four hundred and twelve (66.2%) were informed, 210 (33.8%) were not informed. Information was associated with age, degree of education, geographical area, ECOG-PS, tumour site and family composition and the patient's perception of being supported in the disease experience. The majority of the patients consider their families as the main source of support in the disease experience (86.5%), wish to have a family member participating in oncology consultation (79.1%) and consider the information received complete and understandable or clear and reassuring (80%). Receiving adequate information facilitates a better patient-health professional relationship for 84.8% of the patients. 63% of the patients dealt positively with cancer and 62.2% showed positive expectations for the future. Informed patients refer better expectation than those not informed. Conclusion: Our study underlines the importance of clinical information for older cancer patients and the need to involve family members in the processes of diagnosis and prognosis disclosure and decision making. Health professionals must consider specific age-related issues including social, cultural and emotional aspects and understand the role that the family members play in the disease experience of elderly patients. Competent caring for elderly cancer patients must provide adequate information and emotional support not only to the patients but also to their family to assure appropriateness of care. © 2008 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved

Geriatric syndromes in peri-operative elderly cancer patients

Abstract Due to the expanding geriatric population and the high incidence of cancer in this age group, there is an increased burden on clinical oncologists. Elderly patients suffer from one or more chronic diseases, especially cardiovascular diseases, COPD, or diabetes. Besides affecting life expectancy, comorbid conditions may complicate major surgery. Accurate prediction of surgical risk is of paramount importance. Numerous papers have documented that older patients can undergo surgery with similar cancer related survival to younger patients. It has been demonstrated that age related variables are associated with an increased risk in post-surgical complications. The term ''geriatric syndrome'' needs further clinical evaluation and understanding. It is used to capture those clinical conditions in older persons that do not fit into discrete disease categories. Geriatric syndromes including delirium, falls, frailty, dizziness, syncope and urinary incontinence, are among the most common conditions facing geriatricians. This article focuses on geriatric syndromes in post-surgical patients and their management

The EORTC Cancer in the Elderly Task Force, a Protostar for EORTC's future

AbstractThe EORTC Cancer in the ElderlyTask Force (ETF) aims to develop, conduct, coordinate and stimulate research on elderly patients with cancer. Towards this goal, the ETF has established close interactions with disease-oriented EORTC groups by having representatives from most of these groups attend the ETF meetings. In addition, the ETF reviews every new protocol for elderly-specific questions within the protocol review process of the EORTC aiming to reduce ageism within study protocols. Since 2006, the ETF decided to focus on three aspects: open a discussion on specific methodology for clinical trials in the older population; create a common language for describing heterogeneity between older individuals, the EORTC minimal dataset for geriatric assessment in older cancer patients; and develop specific clinical trials in the older population. This article reports the achievements of the ETF in these three domains and discusses its future strategies

EORTC Cancer in the Elderly Task Force guidelines for the use of colony-stimulating factors in elderly patients with cancer

Increasing age is not, in itself, a contraindication to cancer chemotherapy. Myelosuppression, however, a common adverse consequence of the administration of many standard-dose chemotherapy regimens to both young and elderly patients with cancer, increases with age. The risk of development of febrile neutropenia may contribute to a reluctance to administer chemotherapy in the elderly patient population. We conducted a detailed literature search (1992-2002) to derive evidence-based conclusions on the value of prophylactic colony-stimulating factor (CSF) administration in elderly patients receiving chemotherapy. Sufficient evidence allows us to affirm that prophylactic granulocyte colony-stimulating factor (G-CSF) reduces the incidence of chemotherapy-induced neutropenia, febrile neutropenia and infections in elderly patients receiving myelotoxic chemotherapy for non-Hodgkin's lymphoma (NHL), small-cell lung cancer (SCLC) or urothelial tumours. Lack of available trial data does not allow similar conclusions to be drawn for other cancers studied, but it is likely that similar benefits would accrue from the use of prophylactic G-CSF. There is insufficient evidence to extend this recommendation to include the use of granulocyte-macrophage colony-stimulating factor (GM-CSF). There are insufficient data available to allow the evaluation of the impact of prophylactic CSF on the incidence of toxic deaths in elderly patients with cancer and this is a crucial question for geriatric oncology practice. There is no evidence in elderly patients that the delivery of standard-dose chemotherapy on schedule improves efficacy measures. The data show that febrile neutropenic events are more likely to occur during the first and second cycles of chemotherapy, thus prophylactic measures should be considered early in the course of treatment. Furthermore, since systematic dose reduction can impact on outcome, primary prophylactic use of G-CSF for all elderly patients receiving curative myelotoxic chemotherapy (cyclophosphamide, doxorubicin, vincristine and prednisolone (CHOP) or CHOP-like) is indicated and we suggest a risk-adapted strategy with primary prophylactic G-CSF administration in high-risk patients. Dose intensification, through dose interval reduction, facilitated by prophylactic G-CSF, improved survival in elderly patients with some specific diseases. There is a need for further well-designed studies to identify the elderly patients who will benefit most from prophylactic G-CSF. To achieve this, we strongly urge the design of and participation in further trials. © 2003 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.SCOPUS: ar.jinfo:eu-repo/semantics/publishe

How circulating tumor cells escape from multidrug resistance: translating molecular mechanisms in metastatic breast cancer treatment.

Resistance to anthracyclines is responsible for treatment failure in most patients with metastatic breast cancer. According to recent studies, the expression of specific drug transporters (MRPs) on circulating tumor cells is predictive of prognosis in different cancer types. We observed that patients whose circulating tumor cells expressed MRP1 and MRP2, two drug-export pumps responsible for anthracyclines efflux, who received conventional anthracyclines had a significantly shorter time to progression compared with patients sharing same characteristics who received non pegylated liposomal doxorubicin (P < 0.005). These results may highlight a new appealing role of the liposomal doxorubicin formulation, not only because of its reduced cardiac toxicity but especially referring to its theoretical efficacy in anthracycline-resistant breast cancer patients

Evaluating the physiological reserves of older patients with cancer: The value of potential biomarkers of aging?

Aging of an individual entails a progressive decline of functional reserves and loss of homeostasis that eventually lead to mortality. This process is highly individualized and is influenced by multiple genetic, epigenetic and environmental factors. This individualization and the diversity of factors influencing aging result in a significant heterogeneity among people with the same chronological age, representing a major challenge in daily oncology practice. Thus, many factors other than mere chronological age will contribute to treatment tolerance and outcome in the older patients with cancer. Clinical/comprehensive geriatric assessment can provide information on the general health status of individuals, but is far from perfect as a prognostic/predictive tool for individual patients. On the other hand, aging can also be assessed in terms of biological changes in certain tissues like the blood compartment which result from adaptive alterations due to past history of exposures, as well as intrinsic aging processes. There are major signs of 'aging' in lymphocytes (e.g. lymphocyte subset distribution, telomere length, p16INK4A expression), and also in (inflammatory) cytokine expression and gene expression patterns. These result from a combination of the above two processes, overlaying genetic predispositions which contribute significantly to the aging phenotype. These potential "aging biomarkers" might provide additional prognostic/predictive information supplementing clinical evaluation. The purpose of the current paper is to describe the most relevant potential "aging biomarkers" (markers that indicate the biological functional age of patients) which focus on the biological background, the (limited) available clinical data, and technical challenges. © 2013 Elsevier Inc.SCOPUS: re.jinfo:eu-repo/semantics/publishe