Comprehensive geriatric assessment and its clinical impact in oncology.

Comprehensive geriatric assessment (CGA) is a process that consists of a multidimensional data-search and a process of analyzing and linking patient characteristics creating an individualized intervention-plan, carried out by a multidisciplinary team. In general, the positive health care effects of CGA are established, but in oncology both CGA and the presence of geriatric syndromes still have to be implemented to tailor oncological therapies to the needs of elderly cancer patients. In this paper the conceptualization of geriatric syndromes, their relationship to CGA and results of clinical studies using CGA in oncology are summarized. Geriatric syndromes are associated with increased vulnerability and refer to highly prevalent, mostly single symptom states (falls, incontinence, cognitive impairment, dizziness, immobility or syncope). Multifactorial analysis is common in geriatric syndromes and forms part of the theoretical foundation for using CGA. In oncology patients, we reviewed the value of CGA on the following endpoints: recognition of health problems, tolerance to chemotherapy and survival. Most studies performed CGA to identify prognostic factors and did not include an intervention. The ability of CGA to detect relevant health problems in an elderly population is reported consistently but no randomized studies are available. CGA should explore the pre-treatment presence of (in)dependence in Instrumental Activities of Daily Living (IADL), poor or moderately poor quality of life, depressive symptoms and cognitive decline, and thereby may help to predict survival. However, if scored by the Charlson comorbidity-index, comorbidities are not convincingly related to survival. The few studies that included a CGA-linked intervention show inconsistent results with regard to survival but compared to usual care quality of life is improved in the surviving period. Functional performance scores and dependency at home appeared to be independent predictive factors for toxicity, similar to depressive symptoms and polypharmacy. Overall, CGA implements/collects information additional to chronological age and Performance Score. So far in oncology there are no prognostic validation studies reported using geriatric syndromes or information based on CGA in its decision making strategies.