Cancer.Net Expands Resources on Cancer in Older Adults

Jun 28, 2016

Cancer.Net has recently updated information specifically for older adults and is expanding its resources for this segment of cancer care across the site.

On the Older Adults page, your patients can find the following articles:

  • Aging and Cancer, which provides information on treatment options, emotional and lifestyle changes that may accompany a diagnosis, and ways to cope with financial concerns.
  • Cancer Care Decisions for Older Adults, which includes an overview of the choices older adults have during cancer treatment and the risks and benefits of the various treatment options.
  • Multiple Health Concerns in Older Adults, which offers tips on how to best manage other health conditions in addition to cancer.

Podcasts

On the Cancer.Net Blog, find podcasts related to geriatric oncology, including:

Surgery and Older Adults

Geriatric medicine specialist Beatriz Korc-Grodzicki, MD, PhD, talks about the special considerations that affect older adults who need surgery for cancer, including other health conditions and the ability to recover.

"The assessment for older adults needs to be a little bit more complex and more comprehensive and go a little bit beyond the traditional pre-operative evaluation in a way that will reveal information that can be missed with the usual history and physical exam." —Beatriz Korc-Grodzicki, MD, PhD

Caring for Older Adults with Cancer: Geriatric Perspectives

Heidi Klepin, MD, MS, interviews Miriam Rodin, MD, PhD, and Cancer.Net’s Associate Editor for Geriatric Oncology, Arti Hurria, MD, about the principles they follow when caring for older adults with cancer. They highlight the use of geriatric assessment to better understand age-related factors and individualize treatment. By considering general nutrition, ability to handle daily activities, and co-existing conditions, doctors can more effectively suggest treatment.

"The balance between optimizing the benefits and minimizing the harms of cancer treatment poses a major challenge to oncologists who treat older adults. Among older adults of the same age, there is a lot of variability in how well an individual tolerates a given treatment, so it is important to personalize our estimates of risk for each patient rather than generalize solely based on age alone." —Arti Hurria, MD

Coming soon: Your patients will be able to find special considerations for older adults with cancer according to disease site.


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