REducing DIsparities in Cancer Outcomes

In Luxembourg and across the globe, more and more older people are diagnosed with cancer. Older people have not benefited from the recent improvements in cancer diagnosis and treatment as much as younger patients. This has led to a growing difference in the chances of surviving cancer between older people and younger people. My project aims to improve cancer outcomes for older adults.
To do that, my team and I will first analyse Luxembourgish data to study the reasons why older people are diagnosed with later stage, more advanced cancer than younger people.
Then, we will interview physicians and patients and record medical consultations to understand how they decide on treatment for cancer and how this differs according to age.
Using data from England, we will also study how well treatment is working in older adults, and what complications they have.
Finally, we will create a tool that will help physicians to make decisions about what treatment to recommend to their patients.
With all this information, we will propose actions to take so that older adults have better cancer outcomes. In order to conduct my research and interpret the results in the best way, we will get input from several national and international researchers, as well as oncologists who have expertise in cancer in older people.