ArticleCancers2026
Surgical Intervention in Very Elderly Patients with Spinal Ependymoma: A National Cancer Database Analysis.
Article in Cancers, 2026. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 1 paper.
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The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
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Who cites it
1 citing paper in PubMed.
- Beyond Chronological Age: A Scoping Review of Neurosurgical Intervention for Central Nervous System Tumors in the Very Elderly.Current oncology (Toronto, Ont.) · 2026Article
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Authors and funding
8 authors.
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No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
BACKGROUND/
objectivesSpinal ependymoma is the most common intramedullary spinal cord tumor in adults, and maximal safe resection is the cornerstone of treatment. Patients aged 75 years and older are underrepresented in surgical neuro-oncology cohorts. We sought to characterize treatment patterns and identify predictors of overall survival in very elderly patients with spinal ependymoma.
methodsWe performed a retrospective cohort study of patients aged 65 years or older with spinal ependymoma using the National Cancer Database. The primary cohort was patients aged 75 years or older (very elderly); patients aged 65-74 years served as a comparison cohort. Multivariable Cox proportional-hazards models were fit within each cohort, and a surgery-by-age-cohort interaction was tested.
resultsOf 1497 eligible patients aged 65 years or older with spinal ependymoma, 422 patients (28.2%) met criteria for the final analytic cohort. Intramedullary versus extramedullary tumor status was not available in the NCDB PUF and therefore could not be characterized. Very elderly patients were less likely to undergo surgery than the comparison cohort (70% vs. 85%;
conclusionsSurgical resection was independently associated with improved overall survival in very elderly patients with spinal ependymoma despite lower utilization. Chronological age alone may be an imperfect basis for excluding older adults from surgical consideration.
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