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e24023 Background: Clinical judgement alone is inadequate in accurately predicting chemotherapy toxicity in older adult cancer patients. Hurria and colleagues developed and validated, the CARG score (range, 0–17) as a convenient and reliable tool for predicting chemotherapy toxicity in older cancer patients in America, however, its applicability in Indian patients is unknown. Methods: An observational retrospective and prospective study between 2018 and 2020 was conducted in the Department of Medical Oncology at Tata Memorial Hospital, Mumbai, India. The study was approved by the institutional ethics committee (IEC-III; Project No. 900596) and registered in the Clinical Trials Registry of India (CTRI/2020/04/024675). Written informed consent was obtained in the prospective part of the study. Patients aged ≥ 60 years and planned for systemic therapy were evaluated in the geriatric oncology clinic and their CARG score was calculated. Patients were stratified into low (0-4), intermediate (5-9) and high risk (10-17) based on the CARG scores. The CARG score was provided to the treating physicians, along with the results of the geriatric assessment. Chemotherapy-related toxicities were captured from the electronic medical record and graded as per the NCI CTCAE, version 4.0. Results: We assessed 130 patients, with a median age 69 years (IQR, 60 to 84); 72% patients were males. The common malignancies included gastrointestinal (52%) and lung (30%). Approximately 78% patients received polychemotherapy and 53% received full dose chemotherapy. Based on the CARG score, 28 (22%) patients belonged to low risk, 80 (61%) to intermediate risk and 22 (17%) to the high risk category. The AU-ROC of the CARG score in predicting grade 3-5 toxicities was 0.61 (95% CI, 0.51-0.71). The sensitivity and specificity of the CARG score in predicting grade 3-5 toxicities were 60.8% and 78.6%. Grade 3-5 toxicities occurred in 6/28 patients (21%) in the low risk group, compared to 62/102 patients (61%) in the intermediate /high risk group, p = 0.0002. There was also a significant difference in the time to development of grade 3-5 toxicities, which occurred at a median of 2.5 cycles (IQR, 1-3.8) in the intermediate /high risk group and at a median of 6 cycles (IQR, 3.5-8) in the low risk group, p = 0.0011. Conclusions: In older Indian patients with cancer, the CARG score reliably stratifies patients into low risk and intermediate/high risk categories, predicting both the occurrence and the time to occurrence of grade 3-5 toxicities from chemotherapy. The CARG score may aid the oncologist in estimating the risk-benefit ratio of chemotherapy. An important limitation was that we provided the CARG score to the treating oncologists prior to the start of chemotherapy, which may have resulted in alterations in the chemotherapy regimen and dose and may have impacted the CARG risk prediction model. Clinical trial information: CTRI/2020/04/024675.

Background:Primary central nervous system lymphoma (PCNSL) is a rare malignancy with a median survival of less than 3 months, if untreated. Multimodality treatments with high‐dose methotrexate (HD‐MTX)‐based systemic therapy and/or whole brain irradiation for consolidation or salvage constitutes the most commonly used treatment approach. Due to severe treatment toxicity and aggressive course of the disease, not all patients benefit from this treatment approach.Aims:In this retrospective study, we aimed to identify various clinical parameters that predicted outcomes on survival, and response to various treatments in patients with PCNSL.Methods:Patients diagnosed with PCNSL between 2002 and 2017 were selected for analysis. Data on patient demographics, tumor characteristics and treatment were collected and analyzed for correlation with clinical outcomes. Survival curves were generated with the Kaplan‐Meier method and compared using log‐rank test. Multivariate analysis was performed where prognostic variables and patient outcome were correlated with Cox proportional hazard model.Results:A total of 82 patients were identified and selected for analysis. Median age at diagnosis was 68 years (range 30‐89 years) and median follow up was 3.7 years. The majority (86.6%) of tumors were identified as diffuse large B‐cell lymphoma on histology. Among the 82 patients, 10 (12.2%), 31 (37.8%) and 23 (28.0%) patients received systemic therapy (CT) only, radiotherapy (RT) only and systemic therapy followed by salvage radiotherapy (CRT), respectively, while 18 (22.0%) patients received supportive care (SC) only. Median time interval between diagnosis and treatment was 33 days for CT group and 63 days for RT group. Median overall survival (OS) of the entire cohort was 11.1 months (95% CI 6.1‐15.5 months), while median OS for RT, CRT and SC groups were 8.8 months (95% CI 4.5‐11.3 months), 30.1 months (95% CI 19.3‐41.0 months) and 3.3 months (95% CI 0.8‐5.8 months), respectively (median OS for CT group not reached). Multivariate analysis demonstrated that both the use of systemic therapy (hazard ratio [HR] 0.23, 95% CI 0.11‐0.49, p < 0.001) and radiotherapy (HR 0.54, 95% CI 0.32‐0.92, p = 0.022) were associated with improved survival in the total population, while age (p = 0.48) or type of tumor (p = 0.88) did not demonstrate any statistical significance. Subgroup analysis showed that systemic therapy in patients younger than 70 years of age was associated with improved OS (HR 0.13, 95% CI 0.05‐0.32, p < 0.001), whereas in elderly patient population (70 years of age or older), addition of radiotherapy was associated with improved OS (HR 0.45, 95% CI 0.21‐0.96, p = 0.039).Summary/Conclusion:Our results concur with the published literature demonstrating the survival benefit with the use of systemic therapy in younger patient population. Radiotherapy was independently associated with an improved overall survival in older patient population and therefore should be considered as palliative treatment of choice in the elderly population who may not be candidates for systemic therapy. Further prospective studies are required to validate our findings as well as optimization of radiotherapy in this population.

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