THE AGED PATIENT WITH LUNG-CANCER - MANAGEMENT RECOMMENDATIONS

Elderly patients with lung cancer have not benefited from the therapeu tic improvements obtained during the 1980s with younger adults. Potent ially operable non-small-cell lung cancers are more common in elderly patients, who are more likely to have localised disease at diagnosis. Even so, elderly patients are rarely treated with surgery. Radiotherap y remains the most frequently adopted tool to treat non-small-cell lun g cancer in this age group. Epipodophyllotoxin derivatives constitute the best option for chemotherapy of elderly patients with small-cell l ung cancer. When used as single agent regimens, these drugs show the s ame overall response rate as combination chemotherapy, but with reduce d toxicity. Haematopoietic growth factors are used to reduce bone marr ow damage following cytotoxic chemotherapy, and may be a promising too l in elderly patients. Special attention should be given to increasing the number of elderly patients with small-cell lung cancer enrolled i n phase I and II studies to investigate new agents for the treatment o f this tumour.