Early Detection Is The Best Medicine
Question: The media often shows stories of breast cancer patients who are young. But, I just read an article that said breast cancer is prevalent in women over the age of 65. Which group does breast cancer affect most?
Answer: Unfortunately, breast cancer affects both younger and older woman. However, your article was right—it is actually more common in older women. For some idea of how prevalent, consider that 50% of all new breast cancers occur in women age 65 and older, and 22% in women age 75 or older. The estimated risk of new breast cancer is 1 in 14 for women aged 60 to 79 compared to 1 in 228 women aged 39 and younger. Currently, the median age of breast cancer diagnosis in the United States is 62. As our population ages, women over the age of 65 will become the group most affected by breast cancer.
The best medicine for women of all ages? Early detection. The American Cancer Society recommends a woman should continue to receive a mammogram as long as she is in reasonably good health and would be a candidate for treatment. There is no specific age "cut-off" for screening benefits, and all women over 40 are urged to have an annual mammogram. Sadly, 13 million U.S. women 40 years of age or older have never had a mammogram.
Studies in the past have shown that older women underutilize mammography. Women over the age of 70 are still underrepresented in screening populations, and are a group for whom considerable impact might still be made. One study showed that annual mammography in women 50 to 74 years of age reduced breast-cancer related mortality by approximately 26% within 7 to 9 years of screening.
Regrettably, a study that was concluded last year found older women in general have a lower rate of survival when suffering from breast cancer. The study found that breast cancer diagnosis was often made later in older women and, once diagnosed, they were less likely to be fully investigated for their cancer and had less aggressive treatment than younger women. Older women also were less likely to have had their cancer detected by mammography screening. As one doctor at the American Cancer Society says, "If an older patient has health problems that keep her from being a candidate for breast cancer treatment, then mammography may not have great value to her. However, if an elderly patient is otherwise in good health, then breast cancer could be easily detected with a mammography and treated."
Talk with your primary care physician about early detection, regardless of your age. Only a doctor should give you personalized advice concerning the serious topic of breast cancer.
On a related note, if you’d like to use the Internet to help a low-income woman receive a free mammogram, go to the breast cancer site, and click on the pink “fund free mammograms” box. This site has given more than 16,000 free mammograms to women in need—including more than 1,500 screenings at Mass General in Boston. The funding generated by your clicks is paid for by site sponsors, whose ads appear after you click. In 2006, visitors clicked 71,637,443 times, and funded 2,612 mammograms.
Information for this answer was found at the breast cancer site, The American Family Physician’s web site, and The American Cancer Society’s web site.
