As a result, clinicians cannot be as certain that approved cancer drugs will work as predicted in clinical trials for the people most likely to have cancer. Many of those who do participate are the healthiest of the aged, who may not have common age-related conditions like diabetes or poor kidney or heart function, says Mina Sedrak, a medical oncologist and the director of the Cancer and Aging program at the University of California Los Angeles.įor decades, clinical trials have tended to exclude older participants for reasons that include concerns about preexisting conditions and other medications and participants’ ability to travel to trial locations. In the U.S., approximately 42 percent of people with cancer are over the age of 70-a number that could grow in the years to come-yet they comprise less than a quarter of the people in clinical trials to test new cancer treatments. This dearth of age-specific data has profound implications for clinical care, because older adults are more likely than younger people to be diagnosed with cancer.
As a result, he only learned of the potential for toxicity because his daughter-in-law had witnessed the treatment’s severe side effects in the older adults at her clinic. Older patients are often underrepresented in clinical trials of new cancer treatments, including the one offered to Yeldell. This combination can be extremely effective-at least in younger people-but it can also be “incredibly toxic” in older, frail people, says Elizabeth Kvale, a palliative-care specialist at Baylor College of Medicine, and also Yeldell’s daughter-in-law. In addition, his physician recommended a course of treatment that included chemotherapy, radiation, and a drug targeting a specific genetic mutation. The first drug he tried disrupted his balance and coordination, so his doctor halved the dose to minimize these side effects, Yeldell recalls. In October 2021, 84-year-old Jim Yeldell was diagnosed with Stage 3 lung cancer. This article was originally published by Undark Magazine.
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