Impact of age and co-morbidity on surgical resection rate and survival in patients with oesophageal and gastric cancer.

BACKGROUND

Major surgery for cancer has become safer, including for elderly patients with co-morbidity. The aim of this study was to investigate the association between patient characteristics, resection rates and survival among patients with oesophageal or gastric cancer.

METHODS

The prospective Dutch population-based Eindhoven Cancer Registry for oesophagogastric cancers diagnosed between 1995 and 2009 was studied retrospectively for patient characteristics including co-morbidity. Logistic regression analysis was performed to assess the likelihood of resection in patients with tumour node metastasis (TNM) stage I-III lesions. Cox proportional hazard analysis was used to estimate hazard ratios (HRs) for survival.

RESULTS

The database contained information on 923 patients with oesophageal squamous cell carcinoma, 1181 with distal oesophageal, 942 with cardia and 3177 with subcardia cancer. Of patients with TNM stage I-III disease, 20·8 per cent (557 of 2680 patients) did not undergo resection. Age 70 years or above was associated with a lower likelihood of resection for distal oesophageal (odds ratio (OR) 0·24, 95 per cent confidence interval (c.i.) 0·14 to 0·41) and gastric (cardia: OR 0·41, 0·22 to 0·76; subcardia: OR 0·68, 0·48 to 0·97) cancer. The 30-day mortality rate increased with age (4·7 per cent in patients aged less than 70 years versus 11·9 per cent in those aged 70 years or more; P < 0·001) and co-morbidity (no co-morbidity, 3·6 per cent; 1 co-morbidity, 8·6 per cent; 2 or more co-morbidities, 11·2 per cent; P = 0·015). Surgery (compared with no surgery) was independently associated with better survival for all tumour types. After adjustment for treatment differences, age 70 years or above and presence of two or more co-morbidities were independently associated with poorer survival, especially in patients with subcardia carcinoma (age 70 years or more: HR 1·27, 95 per cent c.i. 1·17 to 1·48; co-morbidity: HR 1·33, 1·21 to 1·62).

CONCLUSION

Surgical compared with non-surgical treatment of oesophagogastric cancer was associated with better survival, but postoperative mortality was increased in patients of advanced age and with greater co-morbidity.