TY - JOUR T1 - Colorectal Cancer Treatment in Elderly Patients: Results of a Retrospective Analysis Addressed to the Chiefs of Medical Oncology Units in Italy JF - Anticancer Research JO - Anticancer Res SP - 3601 LP - 3608 VL - 27 IS - 5B AU - LARA MARIA PASETTO AU - CRISTINA FALCI AU - UMBERTO BASSO AU - GIAMPIETRO GASPARINI AU - MARIO D'ANDREA AU - PAOLA BONGINELLI AU - EMILIO BAJETTA AU - MARCO PLATANIA AU - OSCAR ALABISIO AU - STEFANIA MIRAGLIA AU - ERICA BERTONA AU - FRANCESCO ONIGA AU - RITA BIASON AU - MARIA CONCETTA CHETRÌ AU - PALMA FEDELE AU - GIOVANNA MASSARA AU - INCORONATA ROMANIELLO AU - MARIA EMANUELA NEGRU AU - MONICA GIORDANO AU - GIOVANNA LUCHENA AU - FRANCO BUZZI AU - RICCARDO RICOTTA AU - SALVATORE SIENA AU - SILVIO MONFARDINI Y1 - 2007/09/01 UR - http://ar.iiarjournals.org/content/27/5B/3601.abstract N2 - Background: The aim of this retrospective analysis was to evaluate the differences of 1-year treatment and chemotherapy related-toxicity in elderly colorectal cancer (CRC) patients in different Italian medical oncology units. Patients and Methods: An open questionnaire on the management of CRC patients over 70 years of age, from January to December 2004, was sent to Italian centres. One hundred and seventy-five files from 10 centres were analysed. Variables considered were age, gender, educational level, comorbidities and modality of therapy administration. Results: In only a minority of units were there some staff specifically dedicated to the older patients in close cooperation with geriatricians and the Multidimensional Geriatric Assessment (MGA) was not routinely used (11.2%-16.8% of cases). Only 5.7% patients were routinely enrolled in a protocol. In total, 95 out of 175 (54.3%) of CRC underwent adjuvant chemotherapy and 80 out of 175 (45.7%) received palliative chemotherapy. Of the patients who underwent adjuvant chemotherapy, 75.6% immediately accepted postoperative treatment while 12.2% were initially dubious but subsequently agreed. Only 5.5 and 9.7% of these patients reported very bad or bad tolerability, respectively. At disease progression, 62.5% patients accepted chemotherapy instantly while 33.3% accepted subsequently. Only 1.3% cases reported very bad and 1.3% bad tolerability. Conclusion: In those units in which the problem of the elderly is actually recognised, CRC treatment is adequate, not influenced by age discrimination but inhomogeneous. In the future, standardizing treatment in different oncology units could prove to be beneficial to this population. Copyright© 2007 International Institute of Anticancer Research (Dr. John G. Delinassios), All rights reserved ER -