Neoadjuvant chemotherapy for elderly patients with locally advanced disease: Are we doing enough?

Abstract

389 Background: The administration of neoadjuvant chemotherapy (NAC) for patients with muscle invasive urothelial carcinoma improves overall survival. Recent reports have shown that the survival benefit may be greater in patients with locally advanced disease. Our objective was to assess the utilization of NAC by stage and age using a large national tumor registry. Methods: Patients who underwent radical cystectomy for cT2-4 N0-1 M0 urothelial carcinoma diagnosed between 2003-2012 were selected from the National Cancer Data Base. We excluded those with planned radiation therapy or who received palliative care. A multivariate logistic regression analysis was constructed to identify factors that affected administration of NAC. Covariates included were clinical stage, age, race, sex, insurance status, income, Charlson index, clinical stage group, demographic location, facility location, and diagnosis year. We also used interaction terms in the regression model to determine if stage effects differed by age group. Results: A total of 16,248 patients met inclusion criteria for the study. The use of NAC increased over the study period with 6% of eligible patients receiving NAC in 2003 vs. 27.7% in 2012 (p < 0.001).Increasing utilization of NAC was noted with increasing stage (cT2N0: 15.7%; cT3N0: 19.8%; cT4N0/TanyN1: 20.9%, p < 0.001) and decreasing NAC utilization was noted with increasing age ( < 65 years: 18.5%; 65-74 years: 18.5%; ≥ 75 years: 9.0%, p < 0.001). Following adjustment, increasing clinical stage was associated with an increase in the administration of NAC, (cT3N0 OR 1.46 [CI 1.24-1.71]; T4/TanyN1 OR 1.88 [CI 1.62-2.18]) compared to cT2 disease. In comparison, increasing age (age 65-74 years OR 0.78 (CI 0.68-0.88]; age ≥ 75 years OR 0.37 [CI 0.33-0.43]) was associated with decreased utilization of NAC compared to patients < 65 years. On interaction analysis the effect of higher stage on the likelihood of receiving NAC was attenuated in older patients ( ≥ 75 years). Conclusions: The administration NAC has increased over the last 10 years and is more likely to be given to patients with locally advanced disease or early nodal stage. However, this trend is substantially attenuated in older patients ( ≥ 75 years).