Treatment Considerations for Older Patients With Lung Cancer

Clinical Pearls

Gregory J. Riely, MD, PhD, vice chair, Clinical Trials Office, Department of Medicine, Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, discusses treatment considerations for older patients with lung cancer.

• The spectrum of mutations and rearrangements that occur in lung cancer is not very specific to age.
• Some older patients have difficulty receiving conventional cytotoxic chemotherapy.
• Treatment with a targeted therapy in a patient without the target is always less effective than cytotoxic chemotherapy, no matter the patient's age.