Paolo Bossi, Head of the Head and Neck Medical Oncology Unit and Associate Professor of Medical Oncology at Humanitas University and Humanitas Cancer Center, shared on LinkedIn:
”Older adults with cancer: patient preferences should be a clinical-trial endpoint.
Older adults are underrepresented in oncology trials, despite representing a growing share of people with cancer. Their priorities may differ when balancing survival, toxicity, function and health-related quality of life (HRQoL).
A perspective from the EORTC Older Adults Council and Quality of Life Group calls for patient-preference studies to be embedded in oncology trials alongside survival, toxicity and HRQoL.
Key messages
- 71% of older patients in a secondary analysis of the GAP70+ randomised trial prioritised maintaining HRQoL over prolonging survival.
- Survival and HRQoL consistently rank among the highest-priority outcomes – but the acceptable trade-off is individual.
- Conventional endpoints alone do not show how patients value benefits, risks and treatment burden.
- Preference methods must be rigorous and feasible for older adults
Why this matters
- Benefit – risk assessments that reflect patients’ lived experience.
- Treatment recommendations better aligned with what older adults value.
- Stronger shared decision-making and more patient-focused drug development.
- A more informative evidence base for geriatric oncology.
This is a perspective article, not a new interventional trial. Its central proposal is simple: if we ask older adults to accept the risks of research, clinical trials should also ask what outcomes matter most to them.”
Lissandra Dal Lago, Medical Oncologist at CHIREC Hospital Group, shared Paolo Bossi‘s post, adding:
”We are delighted to share this paper with all the research community working with older adults with cancer. This is the result of ongoing efforts of an interdisciplinary team!
Please feel free to ask reprints and share during the next weeks.”
Title: Integrating patient preferences into clinical trial outcomes for older adults with cancer: A perspective from the EORTC Older Adult Council and Quality of Life Group
Authors: Pierluigi Bonomo, Lissandra Dal Lago, Luigi Lim, Paolo Bossi, Ananda Plate, Heike Schmidt, Jaap C. Reijneveld, Pete Wheatstone, Madeline Pec
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