EPIC elderly real world study
There is conflicting evidence about the addition of chemotherapy for older patients, with real-world studies suggesting there may be a benefit, whereas meta-analyses of randomised trials suggest the opposite. However, older patients are often excluded from clinical trials and due to stringent eligibility criteria, those that are included may not be representative of older patients seen in the real world.
The EPIC elderly study is interested in using a large real-world study to understand whether there is a benefit for older oropharyngeal cancer patients (over 70 years) of receiving chemotherapy over radiotherapy alone. We reanalysed individual patient data collected for the EPIC study from 13 oropharyngeal cancer retrospective and prospective cohorts from Europe and North America. We compare the survival of older versus younger patients receiving chemoradiotherapy, explore whether older patients indicated for chemoradiotherapy demonstrated better outcomes if they received chemoradiotherapy rather than radiotherapy alone, and explore any potential drivers for differences observed in survival between older and younger patients and between older patients receiving chemoradiotherapy and radiotherapy alone.
Inclusion criteria
- Diagnosed with a primary squamous cell carcinoma of oropharyngeal cancer;
- Data available on p16 IHC and HPV testing, age, gender, tobacco and alcohol use, staging by TNM 7th, treatment, clinical outcome and follow-up (date of last follow-up, recurrence or metastasis, death and cause).
Exclusion criteria
- Palliative treatment
