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Colorectal Cancer in Older Adults: Systemic Treatments

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Abstract

Colorectal cancers are common in elderly patients. However, cancer screening is poorly used after 75. Elderly patients form a heterogeneous population with specific characteristics. Standards of care cannot therefore be transposed from young to elderly patients. Tumor resection is frequently performed, but adjuvant chemotherapy is rarely prescribed as there are no clearly established standards of care. In a metastatic setting, recent phase III studies have demonstrated that doublet frontline chemotherapy provided no survival benefit. Moreover, several studies have established the benefit of bevacizumab in association with chemotherapy. There is a lack of evidence for the efficacy of anti-epidermal growth factor antibodies in elderly patients. Geriatric assessments could help to select the adequate treatment strategy for individual patients. Geriatric oncology is now the challenge we have to face, and more specific trials are needed.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Gastroenterology and Digestive Oncology Department, Saint Louis Hospital, APHP/ René Diderot University, Sorbonne Paris Cité, Paris, France

    Thomas Aparicio

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  1. Thomas Aparicio
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Correspondence to Thomas Aparicio .

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Editors and Affiliations

  1. Senior Adult Oncology Program, Moffitt Cancer Center, Tampa, Florida, USA

    Martine Extermann

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  1. Department of Medical Oncology, Institute Curie, Hôpital René Huguenin, Saint-Cloud, France

    Etienne Brain

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Aparicio, T. (2018). Colorectal Cancer in Older Adults: Systemic Treatments. In: Extermann, M. (eds) Geriatric Oncology . Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-44870-1_35-1

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-44870-1_35-1

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