Pilleron S, Gower H, Janssen-Heijnen M, et al. - By performing this systematic review of the literature, researchers analyzed patterns of age differences in cancer survival, using colon and lung cancer as examples. They applied eligibility criteria to select studies from Embase, MEDLINE, Scopus and Web of Science and found 59 studies (20 for colon, 34 for lung and 5 for both sites) for analysis. A great variation in the magnitude of age disparities in survival was evident according to gender, ethnicity, socioeconomic status, stage at diagnosis, cancer site, and morphology, the number of nodes examined and treatment strategy. Although findings were inconsistent for most features, greater age disparities were consistently found for females with lung cancer vs men. In more advanced stages for colon cancer, age disparities increased, while they decreased with more advanced stages for lung cancer. Based on the findings, one of the most crucial prognostic factors in cancer survival was age, but age differences in colon and lung cancer survival have so far been under-examined in population-based investigation.