gms | German Medical Science

27th German Cancer Congress Berlin 2006

German Cancer Society (Frankfurt/M.)

22. - 26.03.2006, Berlin

Overview of Studies with Geriatric-Oncologic Patients

Meeting Abstract

  • corresponding author presenting/speaker Michael Schroeder - Medizinische Klinik I/Geriatrie, St.-Vincenz-Hospital, Katholisches Klinikum Duisburg, 47051 Duisburg, Deutschland
  • U. Wedding - Klinik und Poliklinik für Innere Medizin II, Friedrich-Schiller-Universität Jena, 07747 Jena
  • G. Kolb - Medizinische Klinik, Fachbereich Geriatrie und Rehabilitation, St. Bonifatius-Hospital, 49808 Lingen
  • U. Schäfer - Medizinische Klinik I/Geriatrie, St.-Vincenz-Hospital, Katholisches Klinikum Duisburg, 47051 Duisburg

27. Deutscher Krebskongress. Berlin, 22.-26.03.2006. Düsseldorf, Köln: German Medical Science; 2006. DocPE640

The electronic version of this article is the complete one and can be found online at: http://www.egms.de/en/meetings/dkk2006/06dkk746.shtml

Published: March 20, 2006

© 2006 Schroeder et al.
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Outline

Text

The incidence of most tumours is increasing with age and most of the newly diagnosed tumours are found in patients older than 65 years and more than half of the patients who die of tumour are older than 70 years. Till now clinical studies did not take in account this fact sufficiently. Older patients or those with typical multimorbidity of elderly patients were often excluded from studies. Therefore the proportion of elderly patients is not representative in most studies. On the other hand there is gaining experience in geriatric oncology which demonstrates that treatment results of elderly patients are comparable to those of younger patients, but there must be considered some characteristic aspects of elderly patients prior to therapy, such as impaired organ function, comorbidity, pharmacokinetics, or social status. Recent studies take these facts in account and elderly patients are not excluded by age automatically. Furthermore there are a lot of studies in progress which investigate tumour biology, the safety of treatment, and the influence of comorbidity especially in elderly cancer patients. Table 1 [Tab. 1] shows an overview which studies are in progress in Germany including especially elderly patients. To increase the proportion of elderly patients in those studies barriers must be surmounted in study protocols, in logistics, and as well in physicians as in patients.