Time to Stop Saying Geriatric Assessment Is Too Time Consuming

Abstract

Aging makes us increasingly unique. A group of older patients with cancer of identical chronologic age will demonstrate great heterogeneity with regard to vitality, comorbidity, functional status, physiologic reserves, and psychosocial functioning.1,2 Thus, age alone is an insufficient surrogate for biologic aging. Similarly, commonly used unidimensional measures, such as performance status or the American Society of Anesthesiologists classification, cannot fully do justice to this heterogeneity.3 Despite accumulating evidence regarding the value of geriatric assessment (GA) to encompass the diversity of older patients, it seems almost requisite in literature and presentations on GA in cancer care to state that it is too time consuming to implement in daily oncology practice.4-7 In our opinion, this complaint is ill founded and should be retired. [...]