Colorectal Cancer Treatment in Elderly Patients: A Pilot Study.

e21520 Background: Colorectal cancer is the third most frequent cancer in men and women, corresponding about 9% of tumors in both sexes. Regarding mortality rate, it also ranks as the third one. Especially in the elderly patients, this cancer is lethal, as it brings the challenge of low tolerance of these individuals to the drugs´ toxicity, which often makes treatment deleterious, leading to its suspension. Methods: our intention was to compare the overall survival (OS) of elderly patients with colorectal cancer that did not receive any treatment (NT) or that were treated with standard chemotherapy (SC) or with chemotherapy plus cetuximabe/bevacizumabe (CC/CB) and to verify if was any difference in PFS when patients had their treatment interrupted by toxicity. Retrospective study made at ACCamargo Cancer Center, São Paulo, Brazil, by analysis of medical records of patients treated between 2009 and 2014. Results: The median age of patients was 75.5 years (60-87 years) and the majority of them were women (n = 34, 56.7%). The median OS was 12.6 months (0.66-92 m). There were included 60 patients in this analysis, 20 (33,3%) in each group of treatment. The median OS for NT patients was 3.45 m (0.66-34.8m), for those treated with SC was 12.93 m (0.98-92m) and those treated with CC/CB the median OS was 15.79 m (2.7-51m; p < 0.001). By comparison of groups that received treatment, we observed that patients treated with SC had less toxicity, as they had had less suspension of treatment, less dose reduction of chemotherapy and the same OS, as there were no statistical significance difference between them (12.93 x 15.79 m; p = 0.3) and those that received CC/CB. Conclusions: considering that elderly patients are treated an empiric way, as there are no clinical trials to define treatments for them, it is urgent to analyse what have been done. Here, in a pilot study, with a small number of patients, we could observe that biological treatment is not the best option for them. Patients treated with standard chemotherapy had less toxicity and the same OS as those who received the biological one.