Study Finds Fewer Elderly Colon Cancer Patients Get Chemotherapy

Some elderly colon cancer patients may not be getting aggressive enough treatment, according to a researcher at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota.

Dr. Richard M. Goldberg analyzed a group of over 3,300 patients, all of whom had surgery for Stage 2 or Stage 3 colon cancer and then received chemotherapy.

He told the American Cancer Society Science Writers Seminar in Dana Point, California that older patients were offered chemotherapy less frequently than younger patients even though they seemed to do just as well in terms of side effects and benefited from therapy equally.

Another study of 1,800 patients with Stage 4 colon cancer showed that as a group, patients older than age 65 did worse. However, when Goldberg studied the findings based on how well the patients did independently, he found that the patients who needed help with activities of daily living did poorly, but those who were older but functioned well responded well to chemotherapy.

"This suggested that patients with good functional status were good candidates for chemotherapy regardless of age," said Goldberg. "With the graying of America, the finding that the elderly, but otherwise fit, colon cancer patients benefit from treatment… takes on increasing importance."

Goldberg also found that women colon cancer patients treated with 5-fluorouracil had more side effects than men, including more mouth sores, diarrhea, hair loss, nausea, vomiting and white blood cell count reduction. While it was often necessary to reduce the dose of the chemotherapy drug for women, the response rate to the drug didn't differ between women or men.

Other sources: Reuters