Quality of life of elderly patients with solid tumours undergoing adjuvant cancer therapy: a systematic review

The measurement of quality of life (QoL) in elderly cancer population is increasingly being recognised as an important element of clinical decision-making and the evaluation of treatment outcome. This systematic review aimed to summarise the evidence of QoL during and after adjuvant therapy in elderly patients with cancer.

A systematic search was conducted of studies published in CINAHL plus, CENTRAL, PubMed, PsycINFO and Web of Science from the inception of these databases to December 2016. Eligible studies included RCTs and non-RCTs in which QoL was measured in elderly patients (aged 65 years or above) with stage I-III solid tumours who were undergoing adjuvant chemotherapy and/or radiotherapy. Because of the heterogeneity and the insufficient data among the included studies, the results were synthesised narratively.

We included 4 RCTs and 14 non-RCTs on 1785 participants. In all four RCTs, the risk of bias was low or unclear for most items but high for detection. Of the 14 non-RCTs, 5 studies were judged to have a low or moderate risk of bias for all domains, and the other 9 studies had a serious risk of bias in at least one domain. The bias was observed mainly in the confounding and in the selection of participants for the study. For most elderly patients with breast cancer, the non-significant negative change in the QoL was transient. A significant increase in the QoL during the course of temozolomide in elderly patients with glioblastoma but a decreasing trend in QoL after radiotherapy was shown. This review also shows a uniform trend of stable or improved QoL during adjuvant therapy and at follow-up evaluations across the studies with prostate, colon or cervical cancer population.

This review suggests that adjuvant chemotherapy and radiotherapy may not have detrimental effects on QoL in most elderly patients with solid tumours.