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Abstract
Lung cancer is the most common cancer in the elderly with a high mortality rate. Despite the high incidence, the elderly are under-represented in clinical trials and under-treated in clinical practice. These patients have a higher prevalence of comorbid disease, higher polypharmacy interactions, and an increased risk of mortality and toxicity with cancer treatments, compared to younger patients. Often data about their treatments come from retrospective analysis including patients who do not reflect the general elderly population. However, elderly patients can often receive cancer treatment similar to younger patients and an active treatment should not be denied based on older age.
Financial & competing interests disclosure
C Gridelli has received honoraria and has served as a speaker bureau and on the advisory board of Eli-Lilly, Roche and Boeringher. The authors have no other relevant affiliations or financial involvement with any organization or entity with a financial interest in or financial conflict with the subject matter or materials discussed in the manuscript apart from those disclosed.
No writing assistance was utilized in the production of this manuscript.
About 30% of small cell lung cancer and 50% of non-small-cell lung cancer patients are older than 70 years of age at diagnosis.
Aging is a highly individualized process and treatment decision should not be based on chronological age.
Fit elderly patients should be treated with the same therapeutic approaches used in younger patients, even though treatment should proceed with more caution considering the increased toxicities and higher risk of mortality in the elderly.
Available data come from retrospective analyses and involve the elderly who are not representative of the elderly population seen in clinical practice.