title: Treatment of Breast Cancer in the Elderly.
abstract: Despite the fact that the US population is aging and the numbers of older patients with breast cancer are increasing, many questions remain on how to optimally treat this patient population. Accrual of older cancer patients to clinical trials has been stagnant, and consequently, evidence-based recommendations are often limited by a lack of prospective data to inform decisions. Increasingly, one's functional status has been recognized as a critical factor in predicting for treatment toxicity, and tools such as the geriatric assessment will likely become a routine part of clinical practice over time. Here, adjuvant treatment considerations for older patients will be reviewed, including what is known about treatment efficacy, utilization patterns, and toxicity for older breast cancer patients. Improving enrollment of older patients onto clinical trials should be a national priority; it is only through prospective assessment that we can improve our approaches to treating our older patients with cancer.
authors.affiliation: Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, 450 Brookline Avenue, Boston, MA, 02215, USA. rafreedman@partners.org.
authors.forename: Rachel A
authors.initials: RA
authors.lastname: Freedman
mesh_terms: D000367:Age Factors; D000368:Aged; D000369:Aged, 80 and over; D000375:Aging; D018931:Antineoplastic Agents, Hormonal / Q000627:therapeutic use*; D001943:Breast Neoplasms / Q000401:mortality / Q000473:pathology / Q000628:therapy*; D017024:Chemotherapy, Adjuvant; D003131:Combined Modality Therapy; D055317:Evidence-Based Practice; D005260:Female; D015577:Geriatric Assessment / Q000379:methods*; D006801:Humans; D017410:Practice Guidelines as Topic; D011446:Prospective Studies; D011788:Quality of Life; D018714:Radiotherapy, Adjuvant
chemical_list: D018931:Antineoplastic Agents, Hormonal
keywords: Adjuvant treatment; Breast cancer; Elderly; Older