Geriatric Assessment Tools in Head and Neck Radiation Oncology: An Unmet Need

TL;DR

This paper highlights the lack of geriatric assessment tools for older head and neck cancer patients undergoing radiation therapy and introduces a new tool to address this gap.

Contribution

The paper introduces a preliminary geriatric assessment tool specifically for head and neck cancer patients undergoing radiation therapy.

Findings

Current geriatric assessment tools are not suitable for predicting outcomes in head and neck cancer patients undergoing radiation therapy.

A new geriatric assessment tool was developed to predict premature termination or extended treatment time in these patients.

Abstract

The geriatric population faces unique challenges in cancer treatment due to higher rates of comorbidities, which can complicate the risk-benefit analysis of treatment regimens and overall treatment decisions for both physicians and patients. This is especially true for head and neck cancers (HNC) since these patients experience significant treatment-related morbidity. Currently, there are several geriatric assessment (GA) tools available to predict outcomes in older cancer patients treated with surgery or chemotherapy, but no such tool exists to assess the frailty of geriatric patients undergoing radiation therapy for HNC. In this review, we discuss the available geriatric tools, especially those meant for cancer patients, their limitations in HNC patients, and an additional limitation of predicting radiation (RT) treatment outcomes in this challenging group of patients. We also present preliminary data for a new GA tool for HNC patients that can predict premature termination (PT) of treatment or extended treatment (ET) time.