Research Interests:
Dr. Extermann focuses her research on cancer in the older person. Her main interest is understanding how the general health of the older patient, which can vary considerably, interacts with the choice and the conduct of cancer treatment. She aims at designing models that intertwine geriatric assessment and oncology decision models. She has, for example, designed a model for estimating the benefit from adjuvant therapy in older breast cancer patients, allowing adjustment for comorbidity. She devised an index that allows ranking and integrating of published toxicity of various chemotherapy regimens into decision models.
Dr. Extermann is now working on a grant-funded project designing a scoring system that would allow oncologists to better assess the risk of severe toxicity an individual patient may experience from chemotherapy. Another project explores potential interactions between the multiple medications that elderly people take and cancer chemotherapy. She demonstrated that comorbidity and functional status are independent in older cancer patients and now collaborates with cooperative oncology groups to integrate comorbidity assessment in cooperative trials. She is chair of the ECOG Subcommittee on Aging. Dr Extermann also works on an international scale on projects exploring transcultural attitudes of older cancer patients toward cancer treatment.