Double disparities in patients with gastric cancer: Clinicopathology and survival of older adults in a Hispanic-rich population.

Abstract

169 Background: Gastric cancer incidence increases with advancing age with a median age at diagnosis of 68. However, older adults (age ≥65) are underrepresented in clinical trials. Additionally, Hispanic populations have a higher incidence of gastric cancer compared with non-Hispanic patients and there is evidence that this population has worse outcomes. Given this double disparity in older Hispanic adults, we evaluated the differences in disease characteristics at diagnosis and survival outcomes in older adults compared to younger adults with gastric cancer at our South Texas cancer center serving a predominantly Hispanic population. Methods: We performed a retrospective analysis of patients with a diagnosis of gastric cancer from 2000 – 2018, who had follow-up at Mays Cancer Center, San Antonio, TX. Older patients were defined as ≥65 years and younger patients were defined as <65 years. Median overall survival (mOS) was estimated from Kaplan-Meier curves and groups were compared using the log-rank test. Results: A total of 190 patients met criteria for analysis. Patients were predominantly younger (age <65), with 128 (67.4%) young and 62 (32.6%) older. Most patients were Hispanic (66.4% of younger and 64.5% of older) and male (51.6% of younger and 66.1% of older). The majority of patients had an ECOG performance status of 0-2, including 61.7% and 64.5% (p = 0.55) of younger and older patients, respectively. At baseline, there was no significant difference in location of primary tumor, grade, stage at diagnosis, or histologic classification between younger and older patients (Table). There was also no significant difference between the two groups in H. pylori status, location of metastases, or HER2 status. Of the 109 patients with follow-up for survival, the mOS was 17 months (95% CI: 15-55) for younger patients versus 14 months (95% CI: 13-NR) for older patients (p = 0.19). Conclusions: In this retrospective analysis of predominantly Hispanic patients with gastric cancer, we found that there were no statistically significant differences in clinicopathologic features at diagnosis or in survival between younger versus older adults. Our study was approximately 2/3 Hispanic, a population for which there is a paucity of data, especially in older adults. Given the limited published research available to guide the management of older patients with gastric cancer, including Hispanics, further prospective real-world studies are needed to evaluate toxicity and quality of life in order to improve the care of older adults with gastric cancer. [Table: see text]