The treatment is too invasive, it risks being badly supported, it is not worth it … because of these received ideas, the elderly suffering from cancer are under-treated compared to the younger patients. Professor Mark Lawler, from the Cancer Research Center at the University of Belfast (Ireland), denounces this trend in an editorial in the medical journal British Medical Journal.
He recalls that 70% of deaths linked to Prostate cancer occur in men over 75 years of age, while the disease is less aggressive at this age. The example also applies to breast, colon or lung cancer. Often, if the disease is diagnosed at an advanced stage, specialists do not even offer chemotherapy. “There is growing evidence around the world that older patients are undertreated, leading to a widening survival gap between the younger and the older,” he said. worries Mark Lawler.
Change state of mind
The reluctance would come from the patients themselves, who do not wish to undergo too heavy treatment, and from the doctors, fearing that the chemotherapy would be badly supported. However, these treatments would be able to cure or significantly increase the chances of survival of patients, even the elderly.
“We have to change our state of mind,” insists the professor. While the population does not stop aging, various studies certify a decrease in survival in patients over 65 years. For Mark Lawler, the implementation “of a strategy centered on geriatrics to increase the number of trials carried out in elderly patients and to better adapt current treatments to this population” is urgent. In France, 40% of cancer-related deaths concern people aged between 55 and 80, according to the health watch institute.