treatment compliance and outcome in geriatric patients with locally advanced non-small cell lung cancer: experience from india

Objectives: to evaluate treatment compliance, toxicity and survival in geriatric patients (≥65 years) with locally advanced non-small cell lung cancer (la-nsclc). methods: departmental archive was collected for the details of demographics, treatment and outcome in elderly patients with la-nsclc (2008 - 2013) (n = 96). both progression-free survival (pfs) and overall survival (os) were evaluated using kaplan-meier method. acute and late morbidity were scored using common terminology criteria for adverse events version 4, radiation therapy and oncology group late morbidity scoring system. results: overall treatment completion rate was 65%. the rates of acute grade ≥ 3 hematologic and non-hematologic toxicities were 20% and 17% respectively. overall rate of late toxicity was 12.5%. the median pfs and os values were 7.4 months and 10.54 months, respectively. patients with multiple comorbidities, poor socio-economic background and serum albumin level (< 3.5g/dl) were observed to have poor survival. survival was lower for non-compliant patients. conclusions: curative multi-modality therapy in elderly patients with la-nsclc is a challenging task. they are susceptible to poor compliance, treatment-associated toxicities and poor survival.