Patterns of care in geriatric cancer patients - An audit from a rural based hospital cancer registry in Kerala

BACKGROUND: There is deficit of data from India on elderly patients with cancer. Comprehensive geriatric assessment may lead to a better decision making capacity in this population. However, routine implementation of such assessment is resource consuming. AIM: The aim of this study was to determine the patterns of care in elderly patients treated at a tertiary rural cancer center in India. MATERIALS AND METHODS: All patients with age 70 or above with solid tumors without any definitive treatment prior to the registration at our center and registered between 01/01/2010 and 31/12/2011 were selected for this study. The baseline demographic pattern and the pattern of care of treatment were analyzed. SPSS version 16 (IBM Inc, Armonk, New York, U.S.) was used for analysis. Descriptive data are provided. RESULTS: A total of 761 patients were evaluable subject to the aforementioned inclusion criteria. The median age of this cohort was 75 years (70-95 years). The most frequent primary sites of malignancies in 451 males were head neck (32.4%), lung (23.3%) and gastrointestinal (23.3%). In 310 females, the most common sites were head neck (31.6%), gynecological (18.4%) and gastrointestinal (24.5%). 228 (30%) of the patients had localized disease, 376 (49.4%) had loco-regionally advanced disease and 145 (19.1%) had distant metastases at presentation. 334 (46.32%) of patients were treated with curative intent. On logistic regression analysis the factors that predicted use of curative intent treatment were age <75 years, performance status 0-1, primary site and clinical extent of disease. CONCLUSION: Routine comprehensive geriatric assessment needs to be implemented in our setting as almost 50% of our geriatric patients undergo curative intent treatment.