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. Tumour
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 front-line 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.
Keywords
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Article info
Publication history
Published online: May 31, 2016
Accepted:
May 12,
2016
Received:
February 3,
2016
Identification
Copyright
© 2016 Editrice Gastroenterologica Italiana S.r.l. Published by Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
