Background: The comparation of survival rate between elderly patients with advanced non-small cell lung carcinoma (NSCLC) who underwent chemotherapy and those who did not had been studied in other countries, but had yet to be covered in Indonesia. The influence of confounding factors such as comorbidity, histopathology, body mass index, functional status, age and stage of cancer were seldom considered in earlier studies. Objective: To determine the difference of one-year survival rate in elderly patients with advanced NSCLC who received chemotherapy and those who did not receive chemotherapy.
Methods: Retrospective cohort followed by survival analysis were done on 232 elderly patients with stage IIIB/IV NSCLC and ECOG performance status 0-2 who visited Cipto Mangunkusumo Hospital and Dharmais Cancer Hospital Jakarta between January 2007 and April 2013. Patients were divided into chemotherapy and non-chemotherapy group. Kaplan-Meier curve was used to evaluate one-year survival rate of each group. Bivariate analysis was conducted using log-rank test while multivariate analysis was conducted using Cox proportional hazard regression. The relationship between chemotherapeutic approaches and survival rate was expressed in crude HR with 95% CI and adjusted HR with 95% CI after adjustment for confounding factors.
Results: As much as 232 elderly patients with advanced NSCLC were divided into chemotherapy group (118 subjects) and non-chemotherapy group (114 subjects). One-year mortality percentage were 93.9% and 57.6% for non- chemotherapy and chemotherapy group, respectively. Survival median were 2 months in non-chemotherapy group and 9.73 months in chemotherapy group (HR 3.45, 95%CI 2.52-4.71; p< 0.001). Bivariate analysis showed statistically significant relation between chemotherapy and one-year survival rate. Multivariate analysis showed that stage of cancer was a confounding factor regarding the relationship of chemotherapeutic approach to survival rate.
Conclusion: One-year survival in elderly patients with advanced NSCLC who received chemotherapy was better compared to those who did not receive chemotherapy.
Key words: Lung cancer, chemotherapy, survival rate, elderly.