CONTEXT
toxicity, toxicities
ADVANCED CANCER


Can geriatric assessment (GA)–based recommendations provided to oncologists improve patient-reported symptomatic toxicities in older adults initiating a new systemic treatment regimen?
In a clinical trial of older adults with advanced cancer initiating a new treatment regimen with a high prevalence of toxicity, 86% of patients reported at least one symptom of moderate or greater severity before initiating treatment. Patients who received GA recommendations had decreased symptomatic toxicities compared with usual care. However, the majority of patients in both treatment arms reported new or worsening symptomatic toxicities over 6 months following treatment initiation. The results support the use of GA recommendations in older adults with advanced cancer and reinforce the feasibility of collecting patient-reported toxicity data longitudinally from this population.
GAs can inform treatment selection in older adults with advanced cancer, and high symptom burden in this population underscores the need to monitor patient-reported outcomes on an ongoing basis.**Relevance section written by Increasingly, the importance of partnering with patients to better understand symptomatic toxicity has been recognized.Aging-related conditions influence the prevalence and reporting of symptomatic toxicities and their impact on treatment tolerability.Geriatric assessment (GA) uses patient-reported and objective measures to evaluate aging-related domains.