Tool That Predicts If Chemotherapy Will Produce Debilitating Side Effects in Older Adults

Researchers at the City of Hope independent disease research and treatment center have developed an easy-to-use tool for predicting if older adults with early-stage breast cancer will have a severe or fatal reaction to chemotherapy, reports EurekAlert . The Cancer and Aging Research Group-Breast Cancer (CARG-BC) Score can help oncologists make individualized treatment recommendations by discussing the score and its implications with patients 65 or older. "Rather than basing treatment decisions and care on demographic data for a disease, we now can offer each senior, early-stage breast cancer patient individualized toxicity information that could help align treatment with their goals for lifestyle, quality of life, longevity, and other priorities," said City of Hope's Mina Sedrak. The CARG-BC Score was assessed in a study published in the Journal of Clinical Oncology , featuring 473 subjects treated with chemotherapy either before or after surgery and evaluated for geriatric and clinical symptoms predictive of severe, debilitating, or deadly side effects from chemotherapy. It outperformed current measures of patient performance status widely used in oncology, including the Karnofsky performance status and Eastern Cooperative Oncology Group performance status. The researchers' next step will be to enhance the tool with additional biological markers that could forecast severe or deadly side effects to chemotherapy.