doi:10.1155/2012/206414 Clinical Study Chronic Diseases among Older Cancer Survivors

Copyright © 2012 Laura Deckx et al. This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. Objective. To compare the occurrence of pre-existing and subsequent comorbidity among older cancer patients ( ≥ 60 years) with older non-cancer patients. Material and Methods. Each cancer patient (n = 3835, mean age 72) was matched with four non-cancer patients in terms of age, sex, and practice. The occurrence of chronic diseases was assessed cross-sectionally (lifetime prevalence at time of diagnosis) and longitudinally (incidence after diagnosis) for all cancer patients and for breast, prostate, and colorectal cancer patients separately. Cancer and non-cancer patients were compared using logistic and Cox regression analysis. Results. The occurrence of the most common pre-existing and incident chronic diseases was largely similar in cancer and non-cancer patients, except for pre-existing COPD (OR 1.21, 95 % CI 1.06–1.37) and subsequent venous thrombosis in the first two years after cancer diagnosis (HR 4.20, 95 % CI 2.74–6.44), which were significantly more frequent (P < 0.01) among older cancer compared to non-cancer patients. Conclusion. The frequency of multimorbidity in older cancer patients is high. However, apart from COPD an