Study: Older Rectal Cancer Patients Much Less Likely to Receive Radiation or Chemotherapy

Older patients with stage II or III rectal cancer are significantly less likely than younger patients to receive radiation therapy or chemotherapy, according to researchers at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center.

Researchers linked the Surveillance, Epidemiology and End Results (SEER) cancer registries to a database on insurance claims by people age 65 and older.

They found 1,411 older patients with stage II or III rectal cancer, with 57 percent of them having received radiation and 42 percent having received chemoradiation. Ninety percent of the patients who received radiation had received the treatment after surgery.

Researchers found that the likelihood of the patients receiving pelvic radiation therapy with or without chemotherapy declined sharply with age. Seventy-three percent of patients age 65 to 69, 66 percent age 70 to 75, 52 percent age 75 to 79, 39 percent age 80 to 84, and 21 percent age 85 to 89 were given radiation treatment.

The age trend remained strong after adjusting for other factors that predict receipt of treatment and after exclusion of patients with any evidence of other diseases, said the researchers in their study published in the Journal of Clinical Oncology.

The researchers also found that while radiation therapy was usually given after surgery, survival may actually be better with radiation therapy given before surgery. Researchers also stress that increased efforts are needed to understand why more elderly patients are not given the opportunity to make informed decisions regarding their treatment.

Other Sources: Journal of Clinical Oncology