Would screening benefit 75- to 84-year-old patients with non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC)?

Abstract

7055 Background: The Lung Cancer Screening Trial has shown an overall survival (OS) benefit and reduced lung cancer mortality in the 55-74 age group (gp). We chose to evaluate whether NSCLC patients aged 75-84 are increasing in the USA and whether they would benefit from aggressive therapy. Methods: SEER-17 was used to calculate NSCLC rates during the years 2000-2008. SEER-9 was used to estimate the proportional change in both 55-74 and 75-84 gp from 1973-2008. OS was analyzed in a modern population from SEER-17 (2004-2008) to assess the effects of increasingly aggressive therapy (observation(Ob), radiation (RT) or lobectomy (LB)) for a proposed screening population with T1N0 tumors. Chi-square test and Cox Regression (CR) were used to evaluate OS. Paired T-tests assessed changes in rates and proportions over time. Results: The 55-74 gp rose from 64.4% in 1973 to 67.25% in 1984, but fell to 58.8% by 2008, while the 75-84 gp rose from 12.1% in 1973 to 24% in 2008 (p<0.01), similar in both sexes. The rates/100,000 have been increasing in the 75-84 gp (p=0.02), mainly in females (p=0.003) while the rates in the 55-74 gp did not vary, but fell for men (p=0.03). In the Ob gp (n=1344), NSCLC was the most common cause of death (COD) in the 55-74 (29.8%) and 75-84 gp (40.6%), more than all other CODs combined (median survival (MS) = 11mn). CR revealed that OS was associated with the 55-74 gp (0.59) and females (0.62) (p < 0.001). In the RT gp (n=1870), MS was 14mn and lung cancer was the most common COD at 27.7% (55-74) and 28.8% (75-84), again more than all other CODs combined. CR found that females (0.68) and black race (0.72) had better OS (p<0.017), but age was not. MS was 24 mn in the LB group (n=9384). COD from NSCLC and all other CODs was 8.2% and 6.1% (55-74) and 10.9% and 11.4% (75-84). CR showed that 55-74 (0.36), females (0.58), and Asians (0.73) had lower death rates (all p<0.015). Mean OS between the 55-74 (26.0) and 75-84 (24.2) gp showed a small yet significant difference. Conclusions: Rates and proportions of NSCLC have been steadily increasing in the 75-84 gp. These data show that COD by lung cancer decreased significantly with increasingly aggressive treatment and treatment reduced the effects of age gp on survival. We feel that screening may be of benefit to the 75-84 gp.