Older breast cancer patients: challenges facing oncologists

The population of older patients is rapidly growing across the globe. As breast cancer prevalence increases with age, a disproportionate number of older women will be affected by this disease which is highly curable if diagnosed early (1). Yet, breast cancer in older women are frequently diagnosed late because screening mammogram are frequently stopped at the age of 75 (2). Adding insult to injury, Oncologists are frequently biased because of the patient chronological age and would most likely recommend a less aggressive course of treatment even though it may be curative (3). This conservative approach is frequently not based on clinical factors such as frailty index but guided by physicians fear of harming the patient because of data paucity as older breast cancer patients are frequently excluded from clinical trials (4).