Radical Treatment of Rectal Cancer in Elderly Is Feasible than Feared: Results from a Tertiary Care Centre

The thought of subjecting an elderly patient with rectal cancer to protocol-based neoadjuvant chemoradiation (NACTRT), surgery and adjuvant chemotherapy is sought with fear due to their multiple comorbidities and impaired functional status associated with the process of ageing. Hence, many a times the treatment is compromised and it is a fact that this subgroup of patients is underrepresented in most of the clinical trials. This study was aimed at analysing the perioperative and oncologic outcomes after protocol-based treatment of rectal cancer in the elderly patients, defined here as those with age ≥70 years. Prospective analysis of medical records of rectal cancer patients was done who were ≥70 years of age and were diagnosed and treated at Regional Cancer Centre (RCC), Thiruvanathapuram from 2008 to 2012. In this 5-year period, a total of 339 rectal cancer patients underwent surgery as part of multimodality treatment with curative intent. Of them, 75 patients were ≥70 years of age. Half of them had one or more comorbidities (54%) and majority were locally advanced at presentation (77%). Forty-seven (62%) cases received NACTRT and all of them tolerated RT dose (50.4 Gy) without modification. Anterior resection (AR) was performed in 48 (64%) and abdominoperineal resection (APR) in remaining. Diverting stoma was made in four; of which three remained permanent. Two colostomies were performed for delayed leaks. Three patients (4%) died within 30 days due to leak, sepsis and cardiopulmonary causes. Two thirds (49/75) received adjuvant chemotherapy (ACT) but only 55% of them (27/49) could complete all the cycles without dose modification. The median survival was 28 months. The 3-year disease-free survival (DFS) and overall (OS) were 80.1 and 83.9%, respectively. There were 11 distant recurrences including two locoregional recurrences. The morbidity and mortality of multimodality therapy is reasonable to proceed with radical treatment with curative intent in the elderly patients with rectal cancer.