Aims
This systematic review of literature aims to analyse the 1) amount and 2) type of unmet needs of older lung cancer patients.
Methods
A systematic review of the published literature on unmet needs of older lung cancer patients, (2002 and April 2022) was conducted using CINAHL, MEDLINE, Embase and Scopus electronic databases. Eligibility criteria for the selected studies included all types of quantitative and qualitative studies assessing the unmet needs of older (≥ 65years) lung cancer patients. Studies were included if data specific to lung cancer patients ≥65 years could be extracted. Two researchers independently screened titles/abstracts and full text articles.
Results
A total of 1175 articles were screened resulting in 34 articles that meet the inclusion criteria. A narrative synthesis was chosen due to the heterogeneity of the results of multiple different study designs.
Over three quarters (85%, 29/34) of studies included unmet needs in lung cancer populations above 18 years, therefore data on the age group ≥ 65 years was sparse and had to be extracted for this review. Of these extracted results, older age was often associated with a reduction in unmet needs when compared to younger age groups lung cancer populations. Although the results demonstrate that older lung cancer patients experienced greater unmet needs and poorer quality of life when studied in comparison with other types of cancer patients as a cohort.
Conclusion
Unmet needs in lung cancer patients are significant, however older patients are often excluded from studies due to poor performance scores and cognitive decline. Older patients included in lung cancer unmet need studies are enrolled in trials that do not specify the older age group as their population. Given the high burden of lung cancer, further research is needed to better understand unmet needs of the older patient with lung cancer.