The study looked at two procedures: sentinel lymph node biopsy (SLNB), which is a surgical procedure to remove the lymph nodes from the underarm to determine if the cancer has spread beyond the breast, and radiotherapy (RT), which is standard treatment after breast-conserving surgery, given in multiple doses to control or kill any residual tumor. The data, collected at 15 UPMC Hillman Cancer Center community and academic sites, were evaluated with the UPMC Network Cancer Registry, which tracks cancer patients using UPMC’s electronic health record system. Age 70 was used because clinical trials in breast cancer don’t often include women in this age category. To determine whether patients were being overtreated, the researchers analyzed deidentified data from more than 3,000 women over the age of 70 who were diagnosed with ER-positive, HER2-negative breast cancer from 2010 to 2018. “However, we have found that overtreatment of early-stage breast cancer in older patients may actually cause harm while not improving recurrence or survival rates.”ĭespite guidelines recommending the de-escalation of treatment among older women with early-stage cancer, there has been no definitive study of this patient cohort, who often are excluded in clinical trials because of their age.

“As a breast surgeon, I want to give my patients the best chance of survival with the best quality of life,” said senior author Priscilla McAuliffe, M.D., Ph.D., surgical oncologist at UPMC Hillman Cancer Center and attending surgeon in the Department of Surgery at Pitt. untreated elderly patients diagnosed in the early stages of the cancer diagnosed most commonly in women. A study published today in JAMA Network Open by researchers at UPMC Hillman Cancer Center and the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine sheds new light on this choice and suggests the rate of cancer recurrence or survival may be no different in treated vs. Pittsburgh –Oncologists faced with treating older women with breast cancer often must decide if the treatment may be more detrimental than the cancer.

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