Brain Tumor Care in Relation to Patient Age—An Observational Study Between Years 2016 and 2022 in a Nationwide Cohort in Germany

As societies continue to age, brain tumors increasingly affect older patients. Still, large-scale evidence on whether the relationship between age and brain tumor has been evolving over time is scarce. We examined longitudinal trends among different age groups of patients with brain tumors at 78 German hospitals. Two time periods were compared as follows: phase 1 (1 January 2016-31 December 2019; pre-pandemic) and phase 2 (1 January 2020-31 December 2022; pandemic). Patients were categorized as non-elderly (<65 years) or elderly (≥65 years), and according to 10-year age brackets. The clinical condition was quantified using the Elixhauser Comorbidity Index (ECI) and the Hospital Frailty Risk Score (HFRS). Among the 20,005 patients included, changes in characteristics of non-elderly/elderly patients over time behaved similarly, with improvements in ECI (19.3 to 18.4/15.2 to 14.3; each <i>p</i> < 0.01) and HFRS (2.1 to 1.6/4.7 to 4.1; each <i>p</i> < 0.01), and increases in rates of brain tumor resection (26.1% to 31.8%/22.7% to 27.8%; each <i>p</i> < 0.01). Only patients aged 75-84 years did not follow any of those trends. Over the examined 7-year period, general trends in brain tumor care in elderly subjects resembled those observed in non-elderly patients, except for those aged 75-84 years.