Breast Cancer Treatment in the Elderly

More people are surviving to old age than ever before. In the elderly, cancer is a quite common occurrence; only the circulatory diseases are seen more frequently. Currently, controversy surrounds the issue of how breast cancer in these patients should be managed.

It is estimated that one out of eight women will develop breast cancer in her lifetime (2:107). Of these, 30% will die of the disease. Moreover, as a woman's age increases, the probability that she will develop this form of cancer also increases. According to Surveillance Epidemiology and End Results data, the incidence is 212 per 100,000 in women aged 50 to 54; in contrast, in women aged 80 to 84, the incidence is 435 per 100,000 (2:107).

While in general, tumors discovered early can be operated on in the elderly with good results, controversy over breast cancer treatment has resulted from a number of commonly held beliefs.

The first of these is that initial presentation in elderly patients is typically more locally advanced (2:108). This assumption may be at least partially true. Singletary et al. (1993) found that a large proportion of women seeking a diagnosis for symptoms of breast cancer had fairly well advanced disease. While the elderly women themselves are often blamed for this neglect, recent studies indicate that the medical profession may also be partly to blame for delays in diagnosis (2:108).

Another common belief with respect to elderly breast canc

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Approximate Word count = 845
Approximate Pages = 3 (250 words per page)

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