Abstract
Introduction
Elderly breast cancer patients are diagnosed with a higher stage of disease. They
are also found to undergo less surgery, receive more frequently hormonal treatment
and have decreased relative survival. The interest of this study was to examine the
differences in treatment and survival between elderly versus young (>65 versus <65) patients in Louisiana.
Methods
The SEER database was searched, and all cases of female breast cancer in the state
of Louisiana between 2000 and 2008 were analyzed. Data were stratified by age group
and year of occurrence. The SEER definitions for breast cancer, surgery, chemotherapy,
elderly populations, young populations, radiation therapy and breast conservative
surgery were applied.
Results
The state prevalence of localized breast cancer is lower compared with the national
rate (128.5 versus 144, P<0.001). The rate of regional breast disease is much higher in Louisiana patients than
national average rate (69.7 versus 57.9, P<0.001). There is no difference in disseminated disease. The elderly group was offered
less surgery compared with the young group (11.39% versus 6.68%, P<0.005). The elderly group received more general radiation interventions than the young
group (65.97% versus 53.86%, P<0.005). Mortality rates for the elderly group were higher in Louisiana compared with
the national average. This difference was more remarkable in the >85 age group (127.8 versus 118.5, P<0.001).
Conclusions
Differences between young and elderly breast cancer patients were observed. Mortality
is higher among elderly breast cancer patients in Louisiana compared with the national
average. Further studies are needed to review these differences.
Key Indexing Terms
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Article info
Publication history
Accepted:
October 10,
2012
Received:
April 20,
2012
Footnotes
The authors have no financial/conflicts of interest to declare.
Identification
Copyright
© 2012 Southern Society for Clinical Investigation. Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
