Study: Older Breast Cancer Patients Can Handle Chemo

Each year, almost half of all new breast cancer cases occur in women over age 65. But physicians may hesitate to prescribe chemotherapy for these patients because such intense treatment can be hard on the patient's body.

But a new study suggests that elderly breast cancer patients can get the same benefits from this strong medicine as younger patients.

You'd never know that 67-year-old Joanne Neubert recently had breast cancer, as strong and active as she is.

"I was diagnosed with breast cancer in the summer of 2003," Neubert said. "I had surgery in August and started chemotherapy in September, and I finished up just before the holidays."

Chemotherapy uses strong drugs to kill cancer cells, but it can make patients nauseous, exhausted and weak. For that reason, many physicians hesitate to offer it to elderly patients.

But a new study published in Wednesday's issue of the Journal of the American Medical Association said most elderly breast cancer patients can handle it -- and benefit from it.

"They experienced the same degree of benefit -- by that, I mean the same lowering of their relapse rate and the same lowering of their breast cancer mortality rate by being on a higher dose therapy. This was similar to younger patients," said Dr. Hyman Muss, of Vermont Cancer Center in Burlington, in a news release from the journal.

Researchers tracked about 6,000 breast cancer patients, about 600 of whom were 65 or older, to see how they responded to high doses of chemotherapy.

"All of the women had involvement of their lymph nodes, the glands under their arm, as part of their breast cancer, which makes them at very high risk of reoccurrence," Muss said.

But otherwise, the women were in generally good health. Older patients did have a slightly higher risk of bad reactions to the chemotherapy, but not enough to outweigh the benefits.

Muss said that because a relatively healthy 65-year-old woman can expect to live 20 more years, he believes most women would say the chemotherapy is worth it. But he said the results might not apply to older women with breast cancer who have chronic illnesses such as heart disease, diabetes or emphysema.

"I would recommend that for older breast cancer patients and those that care for them and love them, that they ask their physicians about the opportunities to receive chemotherapy that might be helpful to them," Muss said.

It was helpful to Neubert. She said she's cancer-free and can't believe her age could have kept her out of chemotherapy.

"I don't think it's fair for people my age not to be treated like every other woman," Neubert said. "I think I'm just as capable of surviving as well as anybody else."