Background: The reported decreasing benefit with increasing age from concurrent chemoradiotherapy in head and neck cancer patients prompted this retrospective review.
Methods: Two courses of cisplatin-based concurrent chemoradiotherapy were given to fit patients ≥70 years with locoregionally advanced cancers. Clinical characteristics, treatment, and outcomes were compared with those for an identically treated cohort <70 years.
Results: There were 44 patients ≥70 and 137 patients <70 years. Clinical characteristics, treatment and toxicities were similar except that the elderly were less likely to receive both chemotherapy courses, experienced more myelosuppression, required more unplanned hospitalization, and were feeding-tube dependent longer. Projected 5-year disease-specific survival (71% vs 74%) and freedom from recurrence (69% v. 71%) were nearly identical.
Conclusions: Although these selected elderly patients experienced greater myelosuppression and supportive care requirements, outcomes were the same as in younger patients. Age alone should not be considered a contraindication to aggressive chemoradiotherapy for this disease.
Copyright © 2011 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.