What Is the Outlook for Older Patients with CLL?
This article was originally published on DOCwire News
The prognosis for patients with chronic lymphocytic leukemia (CLL) has seen recent improvements, but these benefits largely appear to affect younger patients, with more modest benefits observed among older adults. A study evaluated the prognosis for older adults by comorbidities and frailty, using Medicare data. The results were presented at the 62nd ASH Annual Meeting & Exposition.
The researchers queried Surveillance, Epidemiology, and End Results-Medicare data on adults aged ≥66 years diagnosed with CLL from 2004 through 2015. Patients were then divided into two cohorts, one of which initiated CLL-directed therapy after diagnosis. Both groups had to be continuously enrolled in Medicare Parts A and B and have no managed care for the one-year period after their diagnosis. Patients in the treated cohort who started treatment on or after January 1, 2007, had to also be continuously enrolled in Medicare Part D. The researchers utilized a landmark approach, in which only patients who survived at least one year after their CLL diagnosis (the landmark) were assessed.
For comorbidity, patients were classified as low, medium, or high per the National Cancer Institute Comorbidity Index, and for frailty, Medicare claims algorithms in the year between diagnosis and the landmark (one year following diagnosis) were used.
Of the 12,687 total patients with CLL, 1,543 were in the treated group. In the overall cohort, the mean age at diagnosis was 77 years, and 45% of patients were female; these patients were classified as low (46%), medium (26%), and high (28%) comorbidity. The most prevalent comorbidity was uncomplicated diabetes (25%), followed by chronic pulmonary disease (17%) and congestive heart failure (14%). A high probability of frailty—defined as ≥10%—was observed in 26% of patients.