Pancreatic cancer patients who cannot undergo curative surgery live as much as patients over 70 years old

Patients over the age of 65 constitute approximately 54% of newly diagnosed cancers and approximately 70% of cancer-related deaths. These patients aged ≥65 years, who form the majority of clinical practice, are represented less in clinical studies than in real life. We designed this retrospective study to examine the treatment and response of patients to pancreatic cancer in patients over 70 years of age.

Our study is a retrospective study that included patients from 5 centers in Turkey. Inclusion criteria were being over the age of 18 years, diagnosed with pancreatic cancer, and with ECOG performance score between 0-2. These patients were divided into two groups according to their age. The classification was made as patients over 70 years of age in the first group (geriatric group) and patients under 70 years of age (<70 age group) in the second group.

Overall survival of the <70 age group was statistically significantly longer (median 10 months vs 9.1 months p=0.027). When the patients who underwent only curative surgery were examined, the survival was statistically significant in favor of the <70 age group (median 20.96 months vs 14.5 months p=0.011). No statistically significant difference was found between the two groups in terms of the overall survival of patients with metastatic diagnosis (median 8.1 months vs 8.4 months p=0.182).

The survival of patients with pancreatic cancer aged 70 and over was shorter than other age groups. While this difference was significant in patients who could undergo surgery at an early stage, it was not found in the metastatic patient group. Prospective larger-scale studies are needed to evaluate the treatment of geriatric patients better.