Background: Scarce data exist about the impact of age in CC patients in the developing world, with 80% of incident CC.
Aim: The objective of the current study was to examine patterns of care and outcome of these patients.
Methods: Medical records of CC patients treated at the Brazilian National Cancer Institute from 2006-2009 were reviewed. Patients were divided into 2 cohorts: ≥70 and <70years. Chi-square and Odds Ratios (OR) with 95% confidence intervals (CI) were calculated. Survival was examined using the Kaplan–Meier method. Single and multivariate Cox proportional hazards modeling was used to estimate Hazard Ratios (HR) with 95% CI.
Results: A total of 1482 patients were analyzed: 1339 (90.4%) <70 and 143 (9.6%) ≥ 70 years. Compared to the younger patients, the elderly presented more comorbidities (p<0.001), but lower rates of alcohol and tobacco dependence (p<0.001 and p<0.001, respectively). A marked difference in treatment was noted for the elderly cohort, even after stratifying by stage. Only 21% of the older patients underwent surgery compared with 27.6% of the younger (p=0.030). Elderly women were 2.1 times more likely to receive no treatment (OR 2.1; 95%CI,1.39–3.23). After adjustment for potential confounding variables, the HR for death in the elderly was 0.80(95%CI,0.61–1.05).
Conclusions: These results corroborate previous data from developed countries: elderly patients have more advanced disease at diagnosis and age is an important factor in the allocation of treatment. Elderly women are more likely to forego treatment. However, there wasn't statistical difference regarding overall survival in this cohort.