The study I presented at the SIOG Annual Conference is about the benefit of geriatric interventions in reducing treatment-related toxicity in older adults with cancer.
What was the study design?
We performed a literature review, two databases – PubMed MEDLINE and [Unbase] – with keywords as neoplasm, age, associated with other keywords. We included all clinical trials published until April 2024 presenting a well-described intervention in older adults with cancer and with a toxicity endpoint. We excluded pilot studies, feasibility studies and the study without a control group defined by the authors.
What were the results of this study?
In this study we included 23 articles related to 20 studies, mainly from Europe and North America. We reported benefit of geriatric intervention first on non-surgical treatment, mainly chemotherapy, and also on post-operative toxicity.
First, about non-surgical treatment toxicity we included seven articles and we mainly reported that geriatric assessment driven interventions reduce toxicities in the intervention group. For the other interventions, like case management or nutrition, we did not report any significant results.
Then, regarding post-operative toxicity, we did not report clear results, probably mainly because of the heterogeneity of the intervention but also the cancer sites.
What is the significance of these results and what is next for this study?
In this literature review we showed that geriatric intervention can reduce treatment-related toxicity in older adults with cancer and mainly geriatric assessment based interventions. We still need further study to conclude on the benefit of case management, exercise or nutritional interventions in reducing treatment-related toxicity. This project is part of a larger project where we aim to elaborate the recommendation on geriatric interventions in older adults with cancer so we are right now assessing the evidence and the work I presented is the first part of it. Then we will perform consensus methods to offer recommendations to share.
Is there anything you would like to add?
This work is a collaborative work between several members of the SIOG.