Survival of Adjuvant Chemotherapy Among Elderly Patients with Stage II Colon Cancer

Summary Background There have been few previous studies regarding survival and predictive factors for elderly patients with stage II colon cancer who also undergo surgery. This study examined the effects of adjuvant chemotherapy (AC) on long-term survival among elderly patients with stage II colon cancer who underwent surgery. Methods This was a survival analysis study with a retrospective design. We reviewed the records of 98 elderly patients with adenocarcinoma of the colon who underwent a surgical intervention with curative intent from 2006 to 2013 at a teaching hospital in southern Taiwan. Some of those 98 patients also received AC, while others did not. The distant metastasis rates (DM rates), disease-free survival (DFS), deaths as a result of various causes, and overall survival (OS) rates of these two groups were studied. Results The patients treated with AC did not exhibit better recurrence rates, DM rates, DFS, or OS rates than the patients who did not receive AC (the no-AC patients). In terms of 5-year OS, there was no significant difference between the AC and no-AC patients ( p  = 0.398). Patients from whom the number of lymph nodes retrieved Conclusion Our results indicated no significant difference in OS between elderly patients who received AC and those who did not.