title: Common cancers in centenarians.
abstract: BACKGROUND
  A Centenarian is a person who attains and lives beyond the age of 100. Four percent of centenarians die from cancer. It is therefore important to understand which cancers affect them in order to devise better methods to prevent and treat them. The aim of this study was to investigate the top cancers that affect centenarians.
  
  
  METHODS
  We identified 1385 cases with the Surveillance Epidemiology and End Result (SEER) database. Our study included centenarians age 100-115 years diagnosed with the 5 most common cancers between 1973 and 2007 in the United States. Observed survival (OS) was calculated for each cancer type. The Kaplan-Meier (KM) method was used to calculate OS at 1-month intervals for the first 40 months after diagnosis using SEER*Stat version 7.04. A log rank test was performed on KM survival output and a Cox proportional hazard model was used to calculate hazard ratios. All statistical analyses were performed with 95% confidence intervals with significance determined at P<0.05. Cox proportional hazard analysis was done using GraphPad Prism version 5.04.
  
  
  RESULTS
  There were 879 (63.47%) females and 506 (36.53%) males. There were 1118 (80.72%) whites, 159 (11.48%) blacks, and 108 (7.80%) other. The top cancers were 405 (29.24%) breast, 267 (19.28%) colorectal, 254 (18.34%) prostate, 247 (17.83%) lung and bronchus, and 212 (15.31%) urinary and kidney cancer cases.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  As the prevalence of centenarians increases, it is becoming increasingly important to become aware of the cancers that affect them in order to better manage them.
authors.affiliation: Office of the Dean of Research, School of Medicine, St. George's University, St. George, Grenada.
authors.forename: Shamfa C
authors.initials: SC
authors.lastname: Joseph
authors.affiliation: Office of the Dean of Research, School of Medicine, St. George's University, St. George, Grenada.
authors.forename: Estevan
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: Delcastilo
authors.affiliation: Office of the Dean of Research, School of Medicine, St. George's University, St. George, Grenada.
authors.forename: Marios
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Loukas
authors.affiliation: Department of Internal Medicine, Woodhull Medical Center, Brooklyn, USA.
authors.forename: Steven
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Osiro
mesh_terms: D000369:Aged, 80 and over; D000375:Aging / Q000473:pathology*; D062665:Epidemiological Monitoring; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D053208:Kaplan-Meier Estimate; D008297:Male; D009369:Neoplasms / Q000453:epidemiology*; D015995:Prevalence; D016016:Proportional Hazards Models; D044469:Racial Groups; D014481:United States / Q000453:epidemiology