Clinical aspects of cancer in the elderly. Treatment decisions, treatment choices, and follow‐up

Fifty‐five percent of human cancer occurs in individuals 65 years of age and older; the most common sites are the stomach, colon, rectum, prostate, and breast. Patient delay in seeking care for symptoms may result in diagnosis at a more advanced stage than that seen in younger individuals. Treatment decisions may be impacted by comorbid illness and by physician reluctance to treat the elderly patient as they do the younger. Age alone never should be the factor that modifies a cancer treatment plan. Clinical trials rarely are available to the elderly; it is time that such treatment bias ceased.

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