[How to identify frailty in older patients with cancer? Available tools]. / Comment identifier les personnes âgées fragiles ? Outils à disposition.

ABSTRACT

Management of cancer in the elderly needs more attention than in younger patients mainly because of comorbidities and geriatric syndromes. Each frailty encountered will facilitate adverse events and complications which are more frequent and more severe in the elderly and have to be anticipated to control for the risk of organ failure and dependencies. Fortunately, tools which have been developed and validated by geriatricians, are available to the oncologists and their validity has been demonstrated in oncology. Yet, they are quite time-consuming and consequently available for a minority of patients. Furthermore, it appears that some of the older patients can be proposed standard therapy and do not need the intervention of geriatricians. This is the reason why screening tools have been developed and validated among which the G8 questionnaire appears to be one of the best. This approach is beginning to be implemented in the daily routine in France and abroad but their appropriate use according to cancer types and treatment intensity should be further improved for the benefit of our patients.