TITLE:
Challenges in Cancer Care of Elderly
AUTHORS:
Virender Suhag, B. S. Sunita, Arti Sarin, A. K. Singh
KEYWORDS:
Geriatric Oncology, Geriatric Assessment, Aging, Cancer
JOURNAL NAME:
International Journal of Medical Physics, Clinical Engineering and Radiation Oncology,
Vol.4 No.1,
January
19,
2015
ABSTRACT:
As a result of vast global improvement of health care and living conditions, the world population is aging. In developed countries, more than half of the cancers occur in patients aged 70 and older. In booming Asian nations, such as India, the aging trend is particularly striking, and therefore geriatric oncology is rapidly coming at the foreground of oncology practice. As these patients have special needs and a different approach to treatment, there is a strong need for the emergence of geriatric oncology as a sub specialty in oncology. Scientific data show that a geriatric assessment identifies many problems in older people with cancer, adds prognostic information, and might improve the outcomes of these patients. There is a genuine unmet requirement to design and implement the following: development of individually tailored geriatric assessment tools for different oncology centers; cooperation of aging and cancer research in the understanding of cancer biology, aging and physiology; improved clinical study designs; development of geriatric oncology programs; and screening tools for geriatric patients made accessible to family physicians.