How Growing Older Affects Cancer Risk and Outcomes

As our population ages and senior citizens become a larger demographic, cancer researchers are focusing on the links between aging and cancer. Studies presented at the 2008 Annual Meeting of the American Association for Cancer Research, April 12 – 16, highlight the biological aspects of aging that are key to greater risk and poorer prognosis, and surgical outcomes.

Surgical resection and survival in octogenarians and younger age cohorts of patients diagnosed with non-small cell lung cancer: Abstract 5537

Although fewer of them undergo surgery, lung cancer patients in their 80s fare equally well following surgery as their younger counterparts, researchers report. The findings offer doctors potentially valuable guidance in treatment options for elderly patients, according to researchers.

Overall, the rate of surgery did not differ by age group. However, when primary lung cancer was considered separately, only 31.7 percent of patients older than 80 underwent surgery for their primary lung cancer compared with 38.5 percent of patients younger than 80. For patients with non-small cell lung cancer, the rate of surgery was 64 percent for those older than 80 and 83 percent for those younger than 80. For patients with regionally advanced disease, the rate of surgery for patients age 80 or older was 35 percent compared with 49 percent for those younger than 80 years old.

The five-year survival rate following surgery was 62 percent for those patients older than 80 compared with 53 percent for those aged 70 to 79 years. Among patients age 60 to 69 years and 50 to 59 years, the survival rate was 63 percent. For the youngest patients, those younger than 50, the survival rate was 79 percent.

“Although a smaller proportion of patients over the age of 80 underwent this type of surgery, their survival rate was comparable to the younger age groups,” said lead author Robert O. Dillman, M.D., medical director of the Hoag Cancer Center in Newport Beach, California.

Elevated interleukin-12 is a plasma marker of poor prognosis in stage III melanoma patients: Abstract 5568

New research has established that elevated blood levels of interleukin-12, which rise as we age, independently predicts poor prognosis in patients with melanoma.
Interleukin-12 is a biological therapeutic agent that has been shown to act on the immune system and increase the body’s ability to fight disease. It has also previously been shown to interfere with blood flow to the tumors

However, the current study suggests that elevated interleukin-12 may play a role in poor prognosis for melanoma.

“This marker tends to increase with age, which could explain the link between age and poorer prognosis of this type of skin cancer,” said lead author Yun S. Chun, M.D., a surgical oncology fellow at the University of Texas M. D. Anderson Cancer Center.