Lung Cancer: Geriatric Assessment Before Concurrent Chemo-Radiotherapy

BARCELONA—It is essential to conduct a comprehensive geriatric assessment of patients over 74 with lung cancer before deciding to escalate treatment dose by switching to concurrent chemo-radiotherapy in an attempt to improve outcomes. This was the conclusion of a phase 2 study reported at the European Society for Radiotherapy & Oncology (ESTRO 37) conference.

(PV-0039 Outcome of elderly NSCLC patients treated with isotoxic RT dose-escalation using IMRT—NCT01166204)

https://user-swndwmf.cld.bz/ESTRO-36-Abstract-Book1

Principal investigator Judith van Loon MD PhD, a radiation oncologist at MAASTRO Clinic in Maastricht, The Netherlands told the Audio Journal of Oncology that clinicians could do more harm than good with this treatment if they did not take into account other factors, and that this held true despite the fact that only patients who had excellent performance status were selected for such escalation.