Progress Through Collaboration: An ASCO and U.S. Food and Drug Administration Workshop to Improve the Evidence Base for Treating Older Adults With Cancer

Global demographic changes in the coming decades will have profound implications for public health, health care spending, and medical research. One of the most acute demographic changes on the horizon is the overall aging of the population. The population of older adults is growing, with a worldwide projected average annual increase of 27.1 million from 2015 to 2050.1 As cancer is a disease of aging, quality cancer care for older adults is imperative. However, there is limited evidence for treating this complex and often vulnerable population. In particular, older adults are under-represented on both cooperative group and U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) registration studies that set the standard for oncology care.2-4 Hence, older adults are often treated using evidence developed in younger, healthier, cohorts.5 Several efforts have been underway by various stakeholders to address this critical need to improve the evidence base for treating older adults with cancer, including the National Institute on Aging, National Cancer Institute (NCI), Cancer and Aging Research Group, Institute of Medicine (IOM), ASCO, and the FDA. In this article, we summarize these efforts and propose recommendations to fill knowledge gaps pertaining to the treatment of older adults with cancer. U13 CONFERENCES Section: ChooseTop of pageAbstractU13 CONFERENCES <