Mortality and Survival Among Octogenarians with Localized Pancreatic Head Cancer: a National Cancer Database Analysis

Pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma (PDAC) has historically poor outcomes. Difficult decisions must be made by patients and providers, especially in the elderly for whom treatment morbidities may not be tolerable. Herein, we report treatment-dependent outcomes of octogenarians with localized PDAC.

The National Cancer Database identified patients ≥60 years with localized PDAC of the pancreatic head (2011-2016). Patients were grouped by age (60-79 and ≥80 years) and categorized by treatment regimen: no treatment, chemotherapy, pancreaticoduodenectomy, pancreaticoduodenectomy with perioperative chemotherapy, or pancreaticoduodenectomy with adjuvant chemotherapy. Postoperative outcomes and survival were analyzed.

A total of 35,409 patients were included, 8745 (24.7%) of which were ≥80 years. Over 52% of octogenarians did not receive any treatment, compared to 19.1% of younger patients (p<0.001). Patients ≥80 years who underwent a pancreaticoduodenectomy had a significantly greater 90-day mortality rate compared to patients 60-79 years (11.0% vs. 6.7%, p<0.001). Only 42.2% of octogenarians who underwent upfront pancreatectomy received adjuvant chemotherapy. Median survival for octogenarians was 3.3 months without any treatment, 9.7 months with chemotherapy, 12.0 months with pancreaticoduodenectomy, and greater than 20 months with either perioperative or adjuvant chemotherapy in addition to pancreaticoduodenectomy. Age ≥80 was associated with poor survival relative to ages 60-79 when adjusting for treatment regimen (HR=1.19, p<0.001).

Increasing age is associated with worse overall survival in PDAC, but select octogenarians can achieve reasonable survival with multimodal therapy. Given the poor survival and increased perioperative mortality of octogenarians, patient selection for surgery and consideration of neoadjuvant therapy may be increasingly important.