Cure improvements escaping older women.

• Position: Breast Cancer

The survival rates for older women with breast cancer lag behind younger females diagnosed with the disease, indicating that the elder population may be missing out on improvements in treatment and detection, reports a study published in the Journal of Clinical Oncology. Describing groups not experiencing proportionate improvements is critically important to identify subpopulations in need of targeted research, according to Benjamin Smith, the study's lead author.

"What surprised me was just how different the outcomes of older women are compared to those of other age groups. In almost all other subsets, we found improvements that cluster in a similar direction, but older women are on a very different slope as far as the minimal improvement they've experienced."

Breast cancer death rates were stable throughout the 1980s for women ages 20-64, but increased for those ages 65 and older. Between 1990 and 2007, the largest decrease in death rates was seen in females ages 20-49 at 2.4% per year, a finding Smith attributes, in part, to the widespread dissemination of mammography, and the use of endocrine therapy and adjuvant chemotherapy. The smallest decrease in breast cancer death rates was seen in women ages 75 and older, at 1.1% per year.

The researchers also looked at the risk of breast cancer death. From 1980-84, women ages 75 and older had the lowest risk of 10-year breast cancer death, 24%. In contrast, those younger than 75...