The meeting, the first organised by ecancermedicalscience, opened today on a sunny morning in Rome. Professor Gordon McVie and Professor Robin Foa kicked off the meeting with a general discussion on cancer as a disease of old age. The first speaker was Richard Sullivan, a Professor of Oncopolicy at Kings College London, with a presentation entitled "The Population Time Bomb".

By 2040 the global population is estimated to reach between 9 and 11 billion of which approximately 26% will be over 65. Even though we refer to this group as old in fact they are now living much healthier and longer lives and can expect to live on average 30 years more than a century ago. The main theme of Professor Sullivan's discussion was “chronological age is not an indicator of biological age”.

Within this group of patients one in three will get cancer, which is a huge number of cancer patients needing treatment globally. This will become a substantial burden on healthcare systems and in particular we will start to see many more cancer patients from developing countries as their life expectancy increases.

Professor Sullivan then touched on the social determinants which influence the outcome of cancer survival in older patients. These include increasing numbers of elderly people being left to fend for themselves as their younger family members move to urban areas. Another major cause of the deterioration of traditional family structures is decreasing fertility rates. These factors impact on the dependency ratio – the number of active individuals compared to the number of elderly retired people. This will mean that elderly cancer patients may lack essential support which will then affect outcome.

So, in conclusion, an ageing population means more cancer patients, and a significant number of these will have haematological diseases.