When I went to see my first oncologist she said to me "Your not 80 so your going to get aggressive treatment". I never understood why she had to say that. What if I was a healthy spunky 80 year old? Would I just be written off? I do know that some older women are getting the correct therapy for breast cancer but many of them are not according to a study conducted within six large managed care organizations.
According to the study if you are aged 75-79 you were three times more likely to receive non-standard primary therapy over women between the ages of 65 and 69. If you were above 80 years of age then you were almost six times more likely to receive non-standard care.
Older women were less likely to be offered chemotherapy and radiation treatments it seems just because of their age alone without taking into consideration the patients ability to tolerate the treatment.
If you are older than 75 years of age and are diagnosed with cancer I think its important that your physician discuss all treatment options available. The older age group should be treated like every other age group and have a personalized assessment of what the risks and benefits are if treatment is needed.
1. This is a tough issue. Like you said, many women that are older can tolerate the treatment pretty well and might do well with nothing but surgery. The rest really need to think hard about it as the side effects of chemo can be a quicker killer than cancer.
Posted at 8:16PM on Sep 25th 2006 by MaryD