Abstract

Purpose: Cancer is an important public health problem in Turkey and in the world. The aim of this study was to determine the incidence of cancer in the elderly population over the years, to evaluate the direction of change in cancer incidence, and to investigate the distribution of cancer types in the elderly population and their effect on survival.Materials and Methods: This study was conducted in 2019. The study was conducted on the data of 596 cancer patients over 65 years of age collected between 2013 and 2016. Pearson’s chi-square test, Cox regression analysis, and Kaplan-Meier survival analysis were used for data analysis.Results: The mean age of the patients was 74 years. (394) 66.1% of the patients were male and (202) 33.9% were female. 47.7% (284) of the patients died during the follow-up period. Cancers were most commonly originated from the gastrointestinal tract. Respiratory cancers had the highest rate of mortality during the follow-up period. Cancer incidence had an increasing trend during the follow-up period. It was found that surgical treatment significantly contributed to survival and reduced mortality risk by 2.8 fold. Chemotherapy was also found to reduce mortality risk by 1.2 fold.Conclusion: The incidence of cancer is increasing in the elderly population. Gastrointestinal cancers are the most common cancers in the elderly population, but the highest rate of mortality is observed in respiratory cancers. It can be recommended that cancer screening should be effectively performed and disseminating healthy aging strategies in the elderly population.

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