This Article Full Text Full Text (PDF) Purchase Article View Shopping Cart Alert me when this article is cited Alert me if a correction is posted Services Email this article to a colleague Similar articles in this journal Similar articles in PubMed Alert me to new issues of the journal Save to my personal folders Download to citation manager Rights & Permissions Citing Articles Citing Articles via HighWire Citing Articles via Google Scholar Google Scholar Articles by Temple, L. K.F. Articles by Schrag, D. Search for Related Content PubMed PubMed Citation Articles by Temple, L. K.F. Articles by Schrag, D. Social Bookmarking                            What's this?

Use of Surgery Among Elderly Patients With Stage IV Colorectal Cancer

From the Departments of Surgery, Medicine, Epidemiology, and Biostatistics, Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center, New York, NY

Address reprint requests to Deborah Schrag, MD, Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center, 1275 York Ave, Room Box 221, New York, NY 10021; e-mail: schragd{at}mskcc.org

PURPOSE: The role of surgery to remove the primary tumor among patients with stage IV colorectal cancer (CRC) is controversial. The purpose of this study was to evaluate surgical practice patterns for patients 65 years of age with stage IV CRC in a US population-based cohort.

PATIENTS AND METHODS: We used the Surveillance, Epidemiology, and End Results-Medicare–linked database to evaluate the patterns of cancer treatment for 9,011 Medicare beneficiaries presenting with stage IV CRC from 1991 to 1999. Patients were categorized according to whether they had primary–cancer-directed surgery (CDS) or no CDS within 4 months of diagnosis. The use of other treatment modalities, including metastasectomy, chemotherapy, and radiation, was evaluated in relationship to whether patients belonged to the CDS or no CDS group.

RESULTS: Seventy-two percent (6,469 of 9,011) of patients received CDS, and their 30-day postoperative mortality was 10%. Patients with left-sided or rectal lesions, patients older than age 75 years, blacks, and those of lower socioeconomic status were less likely to undergo CDS; but even among those older than age 75, the CDS rate was 69% (3,378 of 4,909). In contrast, chemotherapy use was less common (47% for patients who had CDS and 31% for those who did not). Metastasectomy was rare; only 3.9% of patients underwent these operations at any point from diagnosis to death.

CONCLUSION: Palliative resection of the primary tumor is often performed for elderly US patients with stage IV colorectal cancer. This practice pattern merits re-evaluation, given the improvement in the efficacy of systemic chemotherapy.

Authors' disclosures of potential conflicts of interest are found at the end of this article.

CiteULike    Complore    Connotea    Del.icio.us    Digg    Facebook    Reddit    Technorati    Twitter    What's this?

This article has been cited by other articles:

				G. A. Poultsides, E. L. Servais, L. B. Saltz, S. Patil, N. E. Kemeny, J. G. Guillem, M. Weiser, L. K.F. Temple, W. D. Wong, and P. B. Paty Outcome of Primary Tumor in Patients With Synchronous Stage IV Colorectal Cancer Receiving Combination Chemotherapy Without Surgery As Initial Treatment J. Clin. Oncol., July 10, 2009; 27(20): 3379 - 3384. [Abstract] [Full Text] [PDF]