Surgical Intervention in Very Elderly Patients with Spinal Ependymoma: A National Cancer Database Analysis

Spinal ependymoma is the most common intramedullary spinal cord tumor in adults, and maximal safe resection is the cornerstone of treatment. Patients aged 75 years and older are underrepresented in surgical neuro-oncology cohorts. We sought to characterize treatment patterns and identify predictors of overall survival in very elderly patients with spinal ependymoma.

We performed a retrospective cohort study of patients aged 65 years or older with spinal ependymoma using the National Cancer Database. The primary cohort was patients aged 75 years or older (very elderly); patients aged 65-74 years served as a comparison cohort. Multivariable Cox proportional-hazards models were fit within each cohort, and a surgery-by-age-cohort interaction was tested.

Of 1497 eligible patients aged 65 years or older with spinal ependymoma, 422 patients (28.2%) met criteria for the final analytic cohort. Intramedullary versus extramedullary tumor status was not available in the NCDB PUF and therefore could not be characterized. Very elderly patients were less likely to undergo surgery than the comparison cohort (70% vs. 85%; p < 0.001) despite similar tumor characteristics. Among very elderly patients, median overall survival was 59.7 months without surgery and 106.0 months with surgery, an approximately 46-month difference favoring surgery. Surgery was independently associated with lower mortality (HR 0.46; 95% CI, 0.24-0.89; p = 0.021). Increasing age (HR 1.15 per year; 95% CI, 1.07-1.22; p < 0.001), Charlson-Deyo score ≥ 2 (HR 4.41; 95% CI, 1.65-11.79; p = 0.003), and increasing tumor size (HR 1.02 per mm; 95% CI, 1.01-1.04; p < 0.001) were also independently associated with worse survival. In the 65-74 cohort, no significant association between surgery and overall survival was detected (HR 1.23; 95% CI, 0.54-2.81; p = 0.623), though statistical power was limited by only 7 deaths in the no-surgery arm. The surgery-by-age-cohort interaction was significant (HR 0.37; p = 0.043).

Surgical resection was independently associated with improved overall survival in very elderly patients with spinal ependymoma despite lower utilization. Chronological age alone may be an imperfect basis for excluding older adults from surgical consideration.