Cancer diagnoses and survival rise as 65-year-olds become Medicare-eligible.

BACKGROUND: A Medicare effect has been described to account for increased health care utilization occurring at the age of 65 years. The existence of such an effect in cancer care, where it would be most likely to reduce mortality, has been unclear. METHODS: Patients aged 61 to 69 years who were diagnosed with lung, breast, colon, or prostate cancer from 2004 to 2016 were identified with the Surveillance, Epidemiology, and End Results database and were dichotomized on the basis of eligibility for Medicare (61-64 vs 65-69 years). With age-over-age (AoA) percent change calculations, trends in cancer diagnoses and staging were characterized. After matching, uninsured patients who were 61 to 64 years old (pre-Medicare group) were compared with insured patients who were 65 to 69 years old (post-Medicare group) with respect to cancer-specific mortality. RESULTS: In all, 134,991 patients were identified with lung cancer, 175,558 were identified with breast cancer, 62,721 were identified with colon cancer, and 238,823 were identified with prostate cancer. The AoA growth in the number of cancer diagnoses was highest at the age of 65 years in comparison with all other ages within the decade for all 4 cancers (P < .01, P < .001, P < .01, and P < .001, respectively). In a comparison of diagnoses at the age of 65 years with those in the 61- to 64-year-old cohort, the greatest difference for all 4 cancers was seen in stage I. In matched analyses, the 5-year cancer-specific mortality was worse for lung (86.3% vs 78.5%; P < .001), breast (32.7% vs 11.0%; P < .001), colon (57.1% vs 35.6%; P < .001), and prostate cancer (16.9% vs 4.8%; P < .001) in the uninsured pre-Medicare group than the insured post-Medicare group. CONCLUSIONS: The age threshold of 65 years for Medicare eligibility is associated with more cancer diagnoses (particularly stage I), and this results in lower long-term cancer-specific mortality for all cancers studied. LAY SUMMARY: Contributing to the current debate regarding Medicare for all, this study shows that the expansion of Medicare would improve cancer outcomes for the near elderly.

Actigraphy assessment of sleep quality among patients with acute myeloid leukaemia during induction chemotherapy.

OBJECTIVES: Patients receiving induction chemotherapy for acute myeloid leukaemia (AML) anecdotally describe poor sleep, but sleep disturbances have not been well-characterised in this population. We aimed to test the feasibility of measuring sleep quality in AML inpatients using a wearable actigraphy device. METHODS: Using the Actigraph GT3X 'watch', we assessed the total sleep time, sleep onset latency, wake after sleep onset, number of awakenings after sleep onset and sleep efficiency for inpatients with AML receiving induction chemotherapy. We assessed patient self-reported sleep quality using the Pittsburgh Sleep Quality Index (PSQI). RESULTS: Of the 12 patients enrolled, 11 completed all actigraphy and PSQI assessments, demonstrating feasibility. Patients wore the Actigraph device for a mean (SD) of 15.92 (8.3) days, and actigraphy measures suggested poor sleep. Patients had a median average awakening length of 6.92 min, a median number of awakenings after sleep onset of 4 and a median sleep onset latency of 10.8 min. Actual median sleep efficiency (0.91) was high, suggesting that patients' poor sleep was not due to insomnia but perhaps due to interruptions, such as administration of medications, lab draws and vital sign measurements. CONCLUSIONS: Collection of sleep quality data among inpatients with AML via a wearable actigraphy device is feasible. AML inpatients appear to have poor sleep quality and quantity, suggesting that sleep issues represent an area of unmet supportive care needs in AML. Further research in this areas is needed to inform the development of interventions to improve sleep duration and quality in hospitalised patients with AML.

The Role of Extent of Surgical Resection and Lymph Node Assessment for Clinical Stage I Pulmonary Lepidic Adenocarcinoma: An Analysis of 1991 Patients.

BACKGROUND: This study examined the association of extent of lung resection, pathologic nodal evaluation, and survival for patients with clinical stage I (cT1-2N0M0) adenocarcinoma with lepidic histologic features in the National Cancer Data Base. METHODS: The association between extent of surgical resection and long-term survival for patients in the National Cancer Data Base with clinical stage I lepidic adenocarcinoma who underwent lobectomy or sublobar resection was evaluated using Kaplan-Meier and Cox proportional hazards regression analyses. RESULTS: Of the 1991 patients with cT1-2N0M0 lepidic adenocarcinoma who met the study criteria, 1544 underwent lobectomy and 447 underwent sublobar resection. Patients treated with sublobar resection were older, more likely to be female, and had higher Charlson/Deyo comorbidity scores, but they had smaller tumors and lower T status. Of the patients treated with lobectomy, 6% (n = 92) were upstaged because of positive nodal disease, with a median of seven lymph nodes sampled (interquartile range 4-10). In an analysis of the entire cohort, lobectomy was associated with a significant survival advantage over sublobar resection in univariate analysis (median survival 9.2 versus 7.5 years, p = 0.022, 5-year survival 70.5% versus 67.8%) and after multivariable adjustment (hazard ratio = 0.81, 95% confidence interval: 0.68-0.95, p = 0.011). However, lobectomy was no longer independently associated with improved survival when compared with sublobar resection (hazard ratio = 0.99, 95% confidence interval: 0.77-1.27, p = 0.905) in a multivariable analysis of a subset of patients in which only those patients who had undergone a sublobar resection including lymph node sampling were compared with patients treated with lobectomy. CONCLUSIONS: Surgeons treating patients with stage I lung adenocarcinoma with lepidic features should cautiously utilize sublobar resection rather than lobectomy, and they must always perform adequate pathologic lymph node evaluation.