Background and objective: Cancers in a nonagenarian patient are rarely seen, and there is always a moral dilemma for the family members and patient of whether to opt for the treatment or not. The main objective was to identify the survival differences between treated and not treated nonagenarian cancer patients.
Materials and methods: This was a retrospective study of Hospital-Based Cancer Registry data from 2010 to 2016. The data of all nonagenarian cancer patients were analyzed for gender distribution, leading sites of cancer, stage distribution, types of treatment received, and survival. The survival was calculated from the date of the first diagnosis. Kaplan-Meier analysis was done to present the survival.
Results: Of 60,087 patients, 146 (0.2%) patients were of 90 years and above. Hypopharynx in males (20.5%) and tongue (20.5%) in females were the top cancer sites, 60% patient data were in Stages III and IV, 37 (25.3%) patients received treatment, and 86% patients were treated by radiotherapy. The overall survival (OS) was 14.3%. OS in the treatment group was 21.3% versus 7.7% (P = 0.001) in the no treatment group. The unadjusted hazard ratio for no treatment group was 3.8 (P = 0.003, confidence interval = 1.5-9.7).
Conclusion: Selected nonagenarian cancer patients from our population with a good performance status should receive curative treatments in all possible ways.
Keywords: Cancer pattern; nonagenarian; survival; treatment.