Purpose: Cytoreductive surgery (CRS) added with hyperthermic intraperitoneal chemotherapy (HIPEC) can improve the survival rate of certain patients with peritoneal metastasis (PM). However, the perioperative safety and long-term survival of this intricate and possibly life-threatening procedure in elderly patients (≥ 65 years) remain controversial.
Methods: Patients with PM due to appendiceal or colorectal tumours who underwent CRS/HIPEC were evaluated systematically at the National Cancer Center of China and the Huanxing Cancer Hospital between June 2017 and June 2019. The recruited subjects were retrospectively categorized into elderly (age ≥ 65) and non-elderly (age< 65) groups according to their age. Clinical and pathological features, postoperative outcomes, and prognoses were gathered and analysed.
Results: Both groups had similar overall morbidity (56.0% vs 38.7%, P =0.130) and grade 3/4 morbidity (28.0% vs 20.0%, P =0.403) after CRS/HIPEC. However, more patients in the elderly group suffered from ileus postoperatively (16.0% vs 2.6%, P =0.033). After a follow-up period of a median of 20 months, it was concluded that elderly patients had significantly worse 3-year overall survival (OS) than non-elderly patients (16.3% vs 51.4%, P =0.001). Independent prognostic factors were identified to be a high peritoneal carcinomatosis index (PCI) score (HR, 1.10, 95% CI, 1.04– 1.16; P =0.001) and age ≥ 65 (HR, 2.42, 95% CI, 1.32– 4.45; P =0.004) were independent prognostic factors through cox regression analysis.
Conclusion: CRS and HIPEC are related with an elevated prevalence of postoperative ileus but not with the overall morbidity or the grade 3/4 morbidity in elderly patients. However, since worse survival outcomes were observed more commonly in elderly patients compared to younger patients from CRS+HIPEC, this complex and potentially life-threatening procedure should be considered carefully in patients aged ≥ 65 years.
Keywords: elderly patients, CRS, HIPEC, morbidity, survival