[From the Perspective of a Geriatrician].

Abstract

Previous research has revealed that in older patients undergoing cancer treatment, including chemotherapy and surgery, physical or mental/psychological impairment and social background, in addition to clinical condition or organ damage, can affect not only the prognosis but also the health life expectancy. Therefore, in addition to conventional pre-treatment or pre-operative evaluations, geriatric evaluation, such as comprehensive geriatric assessment(CGA)/geriatric assessment (GA)or physical function assessment, i.e., are required to clarify problems specific to older adults and predict their impact on postoperative complications, survival rate, quality of life(QOL), etc. In particular, when a patient is judged to be'frailty', geriatric intervention based on the results of CGA/GA and physical function assessment may improve treatment or postoperative prognosis and QOL, however, the evidence related to this issue is poor, so future investigations are needed. Although the concept of'frailty'differs between the fields of geriatrics and geriatric oncology, they share the common point of not judging older patients undergoing cancer treatment or surgery based solely on their age or appearance but extracting a group in which the disadvantages of treatment or surgery outweigh the benefits. In order to conduct geriatric assessments before cancer treatment or surgery and to make interventions based on the routine assessments, multidisciplinary collaboration conducted by doctors who specialize in geriatrics is essential, so establishing such collaboration would be an urgent task.