Supportive care in elderly cancer patients.
OBJECTIVE
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.


RESULTS
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.


CONCLUSIONS
Age is not a contraindication of antineoplastic chemotherapy as long as it is based on physiologic age and appropriate support is provided.
Balducci
Lodovico
L
Senior Adult Oncology Program, H. Lee Moffitt Cancer Center and Research Institute, Tampa, Florida 33612, USA. Lodovico.balducci@moffitt.org
D000367:Age Factors; D000368:Aged; D000369:Aged, 80 and over; D000970:Antineoplastic Agents / Q000008:administration & dosage*; D015577:Geriatric Assessment; D006801:Humans; D009369:Neoplasms / Q000188:drug therapy / Q000628:therapy*; D010166:Palliative Care / Q000379:methods*
D000970:Antineoplastic Agents