Management of Frail and Not-Frail elderly cancer patients in a hospital-based geriatric oncology program.

Purpose: To evaluate management and outcome of patients >or=70 years admitted to our Medical Oncology ward and evaluated by Multidimensional Geriatric Assessment before treatment with standard or "elderly-friendly" chemotherapy regimens, a list of which was developed within our Geriatric Oncology Program based on published clinical trials and personal experience.

Patients And Methods: Charts of patients treated from January 2004 to January 2006 were reviewed for choice of treatment, tumor response, toxicities and survival.

Results: 117 patients (median age 75 years) were divided into Frail (F) (34.

Resting energy expenditure and body composition in bedridden institutionalized elderly women with advanced-stage pressure sores.

Background: Our study investigated nutritional status, body composition, and resting energy expenditure (REE) in elderly patients with advanced-stage pressure sores (PS), in addition to researching any hypermetabolic condition and its relationship with PS size.

Methods: The study involved 52 institutionalized bedridden elderly women (aged 83.7 +/- 6.

Deep neck infection in elderly patients. A single institution experience (2000-2004).

Background And Aims: Immunosenescence, the age-related decline in immunologic function in healthy individuals, seems to contribute to increased susceptibility to bacterial infections in the elderly population. The present study describes elderly patients' susceptibility to deep neck infection and prognosis.

Methods: Between January 2000 and March 2004, 103 patients were admitted to the Department of Otolaryngology, University of Padova for deep neck infection.