Elderly breast cancer patients who received care in a community hospital setting may have been under-diagnosed, under-staged and under-treated, as per a report in the recent issue of Archives of Surgery, one of the JAMA/Archives journals. The number of older patients with breast cancer has increased along with overall elderly population, as per background information in the article. About half of patients with breast cancer are older than 65 years and 35 percent are older than 70; 77 percent of breast cancer deaths occur in women older than 55. Choosing the appropriate therapy for older patients is a challenge, because a number of have other serious illnesses in addition to their cancer that may threaten their health and shorten their lives. Questions remain about the best screening protocols for elderly women, as well. Some current guidelines suggest that women stop having mammograms at age 70, while others provide no upper limit........
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