Pooled Analysis of the Effect of Age on Adjuvant Cisplatin-Based Chemotherapy for Completely Resected Non–Small-Cell Lung Cancer

Purpose This pooled analysis was undertaken to assess the efficacy and toxicity of adjuvant cisplatin-based chemotherapy in elderly patients with non–small-cell lung cancer (NSCLC). Methods We used individual patient data from 4,584 patients enrolled onto five trials of cisplatin-based chemotherapy who form the basis for the Lung Adjuvant Cisplatin Analysis (LACE) pooled analysis. Patient and treatment characteristics, overall and event-free survival, cause-specific mortality, chemotherapy toxicity and delivery were compared among three age groups: 3,269 young (71%; < 65), 901 midcategory (20%; 65 to 69), and 414 elderly patients (9%; ≥ 70). Log-rank tests stratified by trials were used with a test for trend to study the effect of chemotherapy on survival according to age. Results The hazard ratio (HR) of death for the young patients was 0.86 (95% CI, 0.78 to 0.94), 1.01 for the midcategory (95% CI, 0.85 to 1.21), and 0.90 for elderly patients (95% CI, 0.70 to 1.16; test for trend: P = .29). The HR for ev...