Barriers to geriatric oncology care: Exploring present challenges

The aging population in the United States imposes clinical, financial, and ethical challenges for healthcare facilities. As cancer risk rises with age, an urgent need exists to create organized and comprehensive geriatric oncologic care. Barriers to equitable care include physiologic decline, cultural biases, communication challenges, social determinants, and financial toxicity. This paper examines these five domains, highlighting their clinical implications and the ways they restrict access to standard oncologic care. Defining an organizational framework that emphasizes cultural competence, communication, diversity, and social responsibility offers one potential pathway to mitigate these challenges. Recognizing and addressing barriers at multiple levels is essential for building equitable, patient-centered cancer care systems capable of serving an expanding geriatric population.