Supportive care in elderly cancer patients

Purpose of review To establish the supportive needs of older cancer patients receiving antineoplastic treatment. This topic is very timely because cancer is a disease of the elderly and the size of the older population is increasing throughout the world. Recent findings The treatment of older patients with cancer chemotherapy may be as effective as it is in younger ones as long as the treatment is based on physiological rather than chronologic age; the time-honored instrument to determine physiologic age is a comprehensive geriatric assessment to be performed in all individuals aged 70 years or more. The doses of the drugs are adjusted according to pharmacokinetic changes in age and in particular to a decline in glomerular filtration rate, and common toxicity such as myelotoxicity is prevented with the use of hematopoietic growth factors. Summary Age is not a contraindication of antineoplastic chemotherapy as long as it is based on physiologic age and appropriate support is provided.