Women over the age of 66 in metastatic breast cancer do not always receive the full range of post mastectomy treatment. Anderson Cancer Center in Houston, MD, the study found that almost half of all older women with advanced breast cancer did not receive radiation therapy after the operation.
The researchers sifted through data from 38 000 women aged over 66 mastectomy between 1999 and 2005. In the group, which has been studied 8000 patients, metastatic breast cancer, but less than 4000 were radiation in addition to surgery. To recommend that the radiation offered to women with the disease after mastectomy guidelines were published in six years, this study covers. Therefore, the experts recognized that the benefits of radiation for breast cancer, even after removal of chest-remember that may be affected by the chest wall and the lymph nodes, but many women do not receive additional treatment. Dr. Benjamin Smith, co-author of the study considered the possible reasons for these results.
Many patients may have been proposed, but decided not to adopt it. Before the guidelines were issued, most oncologists radiation is considered to be ineffective after mastectomy. Thus historical prejudices against post mastectomy radiation may have stood in the way of implementation of the additional treatment for some women in other cases, women who were older than 80 years is the least likely radiation after breast surgery. These patients can, as a compromise between quality of life and longevity and decided that life within six weeks or more radiation-plus recovery time-does not seem like the best choice, women could not lived near the clinic of radiation, so driving or hotel accommodation during treatment could not. The cost of treatment and access to health insurance may also be a factor.
If you are aged 66 or older on the diagnosis, you want a full range of advanced treatment of breast cancer? or do you prefer to stick to major surgery and chemotherapy that many patients choose? What will affect your decision? Please leave your comments below.
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