A study in the World Journal of Gastroenterology claims colorectal cancer presents distinct characteristics and worsens outcomes for octogenarian — between 80- to 89-years-old — patients.
Hadar Goldvaser, MD, of Toronto-based Princess Margaret Hospital, led a 350-patient retrospective cohort study examining outcomes between a control CRC-positive patients under 80-years-old and an experimental group of CRC-positive octogenarians
Researchers analyzed survival rates through Cox proportional hazard models.
Here's what they found.
1. Octogenarians were more often Ashkenazi (64.8 percent to 47.9 percent) than the control group.
2. Octogenarians had higher rates of personal malignancies (22.4 percent to 13.7 percent) and lower rates of cancer in their family history (36.6 percent to 64.6 percent).
3. CRC diagnosis was less frequent in octogenarians (5.7 percent to 20 percent).
4. Octogenarians were more likely to develop CRC in the right colon (45.7 percent to 34.3 percent) and had a lower well differentiated histology rate (10.4 percent to 19.3 percent.)
5. Octogenarians had a more aggressive CRC and received less treatment for it.
6. Octogenarian's survival rate was worse than the control group (63.4 percent to 77.6 percent) for both metastatic (21 percent to 43 percent) and non-metastatic cancers (76 percent to 88 percent).
Researchers concluded, "Octogenarians presented with several distinct characteristics and had worse outcome. Further research is warranted to better define this growing population."