Chemotherapy Efficacy and Tolerability in Metastatic Gastric Cancer Patients Aged 75 Years and Older

Abstract

Objectives: More than half of gastric cancer patients have no chance of resection at the time of diagnosis. In gastric cancer, which has increased frequency with age, chemotherapy efficacy and tolerability in metastatic gastric cancer aged 75 and over have been investigated due to the fact that the elderly patient population is not sufficiently involved in the studies. Methods: In our study, the clinical and demographic characteristics of patients, treatment regimens and responses, prognostic factors, grad 3-4 toxicity, progression-free survival (PFS) and overall survival (OS) were examined. Results: In the study involving 118 patients, PFS was 5.8 months and OS was 8.4 months. A disease control rate of 38.1% was achieved with chemotherapy. Conclusion: Since the OS in this study was 10.5 months in patients with ECOG PS 0-1, 13.8 months in patients who received two lines or more, and the frequency of side effects was acceptable, we believe that this patient population should not be left untreated. Since there are acceptable survival values even with single-agent therapies, monotherapy can be recommended for patients with poor ECOG PS and combination therapies can be recommended for patients with good PS without comorbidities.