Search

Adjuvant treatment is still controversially discussed for elderly colon cancer (CC) patients. Our aim was to investigate the benefit of adjuvant treatment for younger (70 years) and elderly (≥70 years) patients.The long-term outcome of patients (n=855) enrolled in a randomized controlled trial comparing adjuvant chemotherapy with 5-FU alone, 5-FU plus folinic acid (FA), and 5-FU plus interferon-alpha (IFNa) was compared in younger (70 years) and elderly (≥70 years) patients using a quotient of each patient's survival time and his expected residual life expectancy (QSL) and a multivariate Cox proportional hazards model.Eight-year overall survival (OS) rates were 58.3% and 57.4% for younger (n=653) and elderly (n=202) patients, respectively. In elderly patients, 8-year OS rates were 51.4%, 61.8%, and 56.3, and median QSL scores were 0.338, 0.371, and 0.343 for 5-FU (n=59), 5-FU plus FA (n=76), and 5-FU plus IFNa (n=67), respectively. In elderly patients treatment with 5-FU plus FA decreased the risk for an event by 1.5-fold compared to 5-FU (HR=0.657, 95%CI=0.495-0.870, p=0.004) and 5-FU plus INFa (HR=0.685, 95%CI=0.515-0.912, p=0.009).Our analysis clearly demonstrates for the first time an additional benefit of FA for adjuvant treatment of elderly CC patients. We conclude that this regimen is very safe and effective for adjuvant treatment of elderly patients.

We analyzed survival of patients diagnosed with ampullary cancer (AC) and pancreatic ductal adenocarcinomas (PDAC).Between 1996 and 2009, 505 and 69 patients diagnosed with PDAC and AC, respectively, were identified. Overall survival was analyzed according to tumor entity, therapeutic approach and pathological tumor stage.The 5-year overall survival rate of patients with AC (37%; 95% confidence interval 25-49%) was remarkably higher compared to PDAC patients (7%; 95% confidence interval 5-10%). In both cohorts, surgical resection improved survival. Analysis of pathological factors revealed a survival benefit for patients staged with small primary tumors (pT1/2) and exclusion of distant metastases (M0) for both PDAC and AC. Interestingly, absence of lymph node metastasis substantially improved survival in AC, but not in PDAC.Overall survival of patients with AC is superior compared to that of patients with PDAC. Therapeutically, adequate regional lymph node dissection seems particularly important for the surgical management of AC.