Senior Citizens Facing Melanoma Should Worry More About Their Health Than Their Age
Patients with lower muscle density had much higher rates of their cancer returning regardless of the tumor size or
patient's age
Aug.
30, 2011 Dont worry about your age, when diagnosed with deadly melanoma skin cancer, as thousands of senior citizens will be this year. New research finds older
people in good physical shape often fare better in treatment than younger patients in poor health.
Research has previously linked older age to worse outcomes in melanoma. These new results distinguish that it's the
underlying vitality of the patient, not age, that really matters.
A new study from the University of Michigan Comprehensive Cancer Center finds that patients with decreased core muscle
density were more likely to see their cancer spread to distant parts of the body.
Senior Citizens major targets of skin cancer; bout
one in five 70-year-olds have had non-melanoma skin cancers, and most
who were affected have had more than one
These findings may also support the idea that the patient's biological response to a tumor is important in controlling
the spread of melanoma. Patients whose systems are less able to mount a response may be more prone to their cancer spreading.
Melanoma Estimates for 2011
The American Cancer Society's most recent estimates for melanoma in the United States are for
2011:
● About 70,230 new melanomas will be diagnosed (about 40,010 in men and 30,220 in women).
Incidence rates for melanoma have been rising for at least 30 years.
● About 8,790 people are expected to die of melanoma (about 5,750 men and 3,040 women). The
death rate has been dropping since the 1990s for those younger than 50, but has been stable or rising in those older than 50.
The researchers believe that identifying those patients who are at higher risk of poor outcomes could impact treatment
decisions, including the success of new immunotherapy drugs. And potentially, if this degenerative muscle loss, called sarcopenia, can be
reversed, patients might have better outcomes.
The study, which appears online in Annals of Surgical Oncology, looked at 101 patients treated for stage III
melanoma at the U-M Comprehensive Cancer Center. Researchers examined CT scans for each patient to measure the area and density of a core
muscle called the psoas, which runs along both sides of the spine.
They found that patients with lower muscle density had significantly higher rates of their cancer returning regardless
of factors such as the size of the tumor or the patient's age. Every 10 units of decreased muscle density translated to a 28 percent increase
in recurrence.
In addition, frailer patients had more complications from surgery to remove their cancerous lymph nodes.
Many studies have looked at ways to reverse sarcopenia by focusing on diet and exercise.
"The big question is if we could reverse sarcopenia through better nutrition and exercise, would that lead to a decreased
risk of recurrence in those patients?" says lead study author Michael S. Sabel, M.D., associate professor of surgery at the U-M Medical
School.
In addition, researchers hope this information will help explain the limited success of new immunotherapy or cancer
vaccine treatments.
"The data suggests that frailer patients may be less likely to respond to these forms of therapy. It is very possible
that prior trials of vaccines or other immune therapies that didn't show an effect would have shown an effect if we had weeded out the
patients unlikely to respond to therapy," Sabel says.
Researchers plan next to look at CT scans from patients treated in these trials to analyze whether the treatments were
more effective in patients without sarcopenia.
Melanoma statistics: 68,130 Americans will be diagnosed with melanoma this year and 8,700 will die from the disease,
according to the American Cancer Society
Other authors included Jay Lee; Shijie Cai, Ph.D.; Michael J. Englesbe, M.D.; Stephen Holcombe, M.S.; and Stewart Wang,
M.D., Ph.D., all from U-M
Aug.
30, 2011 Dont worry about your age, when diagnosed with deadly melanoma skin cancer, as thousands of senior citizens will be this year. New research finds older
people in good physical shape often fare better in treatment than younger patients in poor health.