The EORTC Cancer in the Elderly Task Force, a Protostar for EORTC's future

The EORTC Cancer in the ElderlyTask Force (ETF) aims to develop, conduct, coordinate and stimulate research on elderly patients with cancer. Towards this goal, the ETF has established close interactions with disease-oriented EORTC groups by having representatives from most of these groups attend the ETF meetings. In addition, the ETF reviews every new protocol for elderly-specific questions within the protocol review process of the EORTC aiming to reduce ageism within study protocols. Since 2006, the ETF decided to focus on three aspects: open a discussion on specific methodology for clinical trials in the older population; create a common language for describing heterogeneity between older individuals, the EORTC minimal dataset for geriatric assessment in older cancer patients; and develop specific clinical trials in the older population. This article reports the achievements of the ETF in these three domains and discusses its future strategies.