HealthDay News — Two geriatric screening tools show effectiveness at predicting functional decline and overall survival (OS) in an older population with cancer.
Cindy Kenis, RN, from University Hospitals Leuven in Belgium, and colleagues compared the G-8 screening tool and the Flemish version of the Triage Risk Screening Tool (fTRST) in 937 patients aged 70 years and older who had a malignant tumor and a new cancer event that required a treatment decision between October 2009 and July 2011.
Geriatric assessments were performed and after two to three months of treatment functionality was reevaluated. The findings were published in the Journal of Clinical Oncology.
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Functional decline on activities of daily living (ADLs) and instrumental ADLs was strongly predicted with G8 and fTRST (≥1 cutoff; P<0.001 for both), the researchers found. G8 and fTRST (cutoff of ≥1 and ≥2) were prognostic for overall survival (P< 0.001 for all).
Both tools showed high sensitivity (86.5% to 91.3%) and moderate negative predictive value (61.3% to 63.4%) for detecting cancer patients with a geriatric risk profile.
“Both geriatric screening tools, G8 and fTRST, are simple and useful instruments in older patients with cancer for identifying patients with a geriatric risk profile and have a strong prognostic value for functional decline and OS,” they concluded.
