Immunotherapy Found to Benefit Older Patients With Cancer

As per studies conducted in this regard, it has been found that Immunotherapy works perfectly well for older patients with cancer. It was found so when they were administered single-agent immune checkpoint inhibitors.

At the same time, older patients also witnessed somewhat higher rates of adverse events and therapy, especially with an advancement in age. So, you can say that age is a crucial factor in giving such a treatment to older patients.

Immunotherapy Found to Benefit Older Patients With Cancer

As per the findings, older patients who are above 90 years of age may reflect somewhat lower threshold for different toxicities. They also seem to warrant closer monitoring at the time of receiving immunotherapy.

This is what established during  research by an Oklahoma doctor Abdul Rafeh Naqash. He works at Oklahoma University as chief professor of medicine in medical oncology.

This is what Naqash told Healio, “We found that patients over age 80 [years] had promising and comparable treatment response and survival, and no significant difference in side effects, compared with previously reported outcomes for younger populations with similar cancers. This suggests that certain elements of the immune system maintain integrity even as we age,”

As far as the fact is concerned, we have only limited data available for patients who are above the age of 75 years with cancer.

“This creates a barrier to understanding how the outcomes in this patient population compare with a younger age group, and we often have to rely on extrapolating data from younger patients,” Naqash told Healio.

As per the original analysis done in this regard, Naqash and his team included as many as 928 patients with cancer who were aged 80 years and older (median age, 83 years; range, 75-97) treated with single-agent immunotherapies at 18 academic medical centers across the United States and Europe between 2010 and 2019.

Results clearly showed that there were no crucial difference in the rate of immune-related adverse events among patients aged younger than 85 years, 85 to 89 years, and 90 years or older. 

He further explained, “Such data can help drive future clinical trials in this space and encourage participation of such underrepresented groups wherever and whenever possible to drive promising therapeutic approaches,” he said. “Subsequent studies in this age group will be instrumental in generating data physicians can use to make treatment decisions that are age appropriate, rather than merely rely on data extrapolation drawn from younger populations.” he concluded.

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