Optimal management of elderly cancer patients: usefulness of the Comprehensive Geriatric Assessment.

ABSTRACT:

Background

Cancer is common in older patients, who raise specific treatment challenges due to aging-related, organ-specific physiologic changes and the presence in most cases of comorbidities capable of affecting treatment tolerance and outcomes. Identifying comorbid conditions and physiologic changes due to aging allows oncologists to better assess the risk/benefit ratio and to adjust the treatment accordingly. Conducting a Comprehensive Geriatric Assessment (CGA) is one approach developed for this purpose. We reviewed the evidence on the usefulness of CGA for assessing health problems and predicting cancer treatment outcomes, functional decline, morbidity, and mortality in older patients with solid malignancies.

Methods

We searched Medline for articles published in English

SUBMITTER: Caillet P 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC4189720 | biostudies-literature | 2014

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature