Potentially inappropriate medication use in elderly non-Hodgkin lymphoma patients is associated with reduced survival and increased toxicities

Abstract

Survival outcomes for elderly lymphoma patients are disproportionally inferior to those of younger patients. We examined medication usage at diagnosis for 171 elderly patients (median age 70 years) with aggressive non-Hodgkin lymphoma treated between 2009 and 2014. At least one potentially inappropriate medication was used in 47% of patients according to the Beers Criteria, 59% experienced treatment delays and/or dose reduction and 65% experienced ≥ grade 3 treatment-related toxicities. We report here for the first time that potentially inappropriate medication use was associated with reduced progression-free survival and overall survival, and increased ≥ grade 3 treatment-related toxicities in multivariate analysis.