Specialized care for elderly cancer patients

The risk of cancer rises with age

Age is a risk factor in some tumors, above all in the most common ones: breast cancerprostate cancerlung cancer and colorectal cancerLife expectancy has risen dramatically in the 20th century and therefore the ageing of the population is a factor which we need to bear in mind when forecasting a higher incidence of certain types of cancer, because the longer we live the greater our exposure to carcinogens and the greater the accumulation of genetic alterations which may be associated with some tumors.

Over 60% of all tumors are diagnosed in people over 65 years old and 40% of all tumors are diagnosed in people over 70. In Spain, half of cancer patients are over 70 years old and 65% of cancer deaths occur after 65 years old.

These figures indicate to us that cancer is a disease which is highly present in elderly people and therefore requires a special approach with regard to the particular features of this group of patients.

Why specialized care for elderly patients?

  • People over 65 include patients with very different health conditions. There are people who reach this age with a truly exceptional quality of life and at the other extreme we have patients with multiple pathologies and a very limited quality of life or who are dependent on others.
  • These comorbidities may affect the prognosis.
  • The different diseases and life conditions may also limit the treatment options and results and therefore the patient’s life expectancy.

Center specialized in care for elderly patients

  • We have a team of renowned professionals with extensive careers in cancer treatment and in the application of the latest innovations.
  • Our specialization in Personalized Oncology allows us to develop customized treatments for each patient depending on the type of tumor and the prognosis, bearing in mind their general state of health and their personal circumstances. Not only are there no two tumors alike, but there are also no two patients with the same health conditions or the same personal circumstances.
  • We have the most advanced technology for treatment: the most advanced and accurate linear accelerator currently in existence, the TrueBeam STx with Novalis Technology. This technology offers the following benefits:
    • strength and accuracy in treatments unknown until now
    • The extreme accuracy reduces the effect on healthy tissue until it is practically imperceptible, thus very significantly avoiding the until now damaging effects of radiotherapy
    • It opens the possibility of treatments in patients when the indication of radiotherapy has been ruled outparticularly elderly patients with multiple pathologies
    • It opens new treatment options for patients with abdominal metastases, non-resectable liver tumors (primary and metastatic), pancreatic cancer and primary or metastatic lung tumors when surgery has been ruled out
  • Our location in a general hospital with a high level of specialization in this type of patient
  • On being an open center, patients, their carers, relatives and the people around them do not lose their link with their original doctor, who follows the entire process and forms part of the monitoring committees and actively participates in the process of Comprehensive Geriatric Assessment established by the International Society of Geriatric Oncology.