An article was recently published in the science journal Interactive CardioVascular and Thoracic Surgery, written by a research team at the Landspítali University Hospital and the University of Iceland, describing the results of operations on lung cancer in the elderly. The research revealed that results from these operations were just as good as in younger people.
The number of elderly patients is rapidly growing, and 6% of the Icelandic population is currently older than 75. In twenty years the ratio will have almost doubled. It is thus vital to map the results from surgeries in the fast growing group of patients and examine how they fare post-op. The research confirms that both short-term and long-term results from lung cancer surgeries are favourable among the elderly. This is, of course, important knowledge for the patients themselves and their families, but also for health professionals.
Lung cancer is the second most common cancer in Iceland in both genders and has the highest mortality rate. Smoking is considered the cause of 90 percent of all lung cancer in Iceland, and around 160 cases are diagnosed annually. Of those diagnosed about 25 percent are over 75 years of age. Today, surgery is the only well studied cure for lung cancer where a part of the lung and sometimes the whole lung is removed. There has been a gap in the data on success rate of the operations in the elderly.
The study population comprised all patients 75 years or older diagnosed with lung cancer in Iceland from 1991 to 2014, or almost 800 individuals. Surgical resection rate in the elderly group was 18% compared to 32% in the younger age group. The most frequent reasons for not operating on elderly patients was that the cancer had spread (in 64% of the patients) however, poor pulmonary function and serious heart disease also factored in.
When examining the group of elderly patients that were operated on; it became clear that their survival rate was just as good as in individuals younger than 75. The same was true for the rate of major complications following surgery, and 30 day mortality. The results of the surgeries in Iceland are very good compared to foreign studies. The postoperative survival rate was 98 percent, which is among the highest known in the world.
The first author is Kristján Baldvinsson, doctor at the Landspítali University Hospital, but Tómas Guðbjartsson, Professor at the University of Iceland's Faculty of Medicine, led the study. Other authors are the doctors Guðrún Nína Óskarsdóttir, Andri Wilberg Orrason, Húnbogi Þorsteinsson, Martin Ingi Sigurðsson and Steinn Jónsson, Professor at the UI Faculty of Medicine, as well as Hannes Halldórsson, medical student. Please click for the article