Objective: To determine outcomes of patients ≥70 years with resected pancreatic cancer.
Methods: A study was conducted to identify pancreatic cancer patients ≥70 years who underwent surgery for pancreatic carcinoma from 2000 to 2012. Patients were excluded if they had neoadjuvant therapy. The primary endpoint was overall survival (OS).
Results: We identified 112 patients with a median follow-up of surviving patients of 36 months. The median patient age was 77 years. The median and 5 year OS was 20.5 months and 19%, respectively. Univariate analysis (UVA) showed a significant correlation for increased mortality with N1 (P=0.03) as well as post-op CA19-9 >90 (P<0.001), with a trend towards decreased mortality with adjuvant chemoradiation (P=0.08). Multivariate analysis (MVA) showed a statistically significant increased mortality associated with N1 (P=0.008), post-op CA19-9 >90 (P=0.002), while adjuvant chemoradiation (P=0.04) was associated with decreased mortality.
Conclusions: These data show that in patients ≥70, nodal status, post-op CA19-9, and adjuvant chemoradiation, were associated with OS. The data suggests that outcomes of patients ≥70 years who undergo upfront surgical resection are not inferior to younger patients.
Keywords: Pancreatic cancer; adjuvant therapy; chemoradiation; elderly; surgery.