Research shows older patients are significantly less likely to receive surgery, chemotherapy or radiotherapy despite treatment improvements over the last ten years.

Breakthrough Breast Cancer has uncovered alarming variations in care for breast cancer patients depending on their age and is launching the Every Chance campaign in parliament today (24 February) to highlight this issue. The charity says that this discrimination must stop. Risk of breast cancer increases with age and fair treatment must be available to all.

The charity will be collecting evidence from older patients and their relatives across the country to ensure all barriers to treatments that will benefit them are removed and lives saved.

Recent research funded by Breakthrough and others shows that some older patients are not benefitting from the advances in radiotherapy, chemotherapy and surgery over the last ten years that have dramatically improved the survival chances of younger patients:

• Breast cancer patients aged over 80 are 40 times less likely to receive surgery than younger patients (1)
• Where surgery does take place older women are significantly less likely to receive breast conserving surgery (1)
• Older women are significantly less likely to receive standard treatments such as chemotherapy and radiotherapy than younger women (2)

Breakthrough’s Every Chance campaign is calling for treatment to be based on clinical need rather than age and seeks to open the debate around the issue of age equality. We are campaigning to ensure that regardless of age, all breast cancer patients have every chance:

• to access the treatments and care that will benefit them
• to access appropriate clinical trials
• to make informed choices about their treatment
 

And that all women over 70 and who are no longer routinely invited to breast screening have every chance to access this vital life-saving service.

When Daphne Cook was diagnosed with breast cancer aged 74 her consultant told her she needn’t have potentially life-saving radiotherapy as being older may make it difficult for her to get to the hospital. Luckily for Daphne, her daughter, a health professional, was with her and questioned the consultant’s reasoning.

Mrs Cook, now 87, a grandmother of seven and great-grandmother of six, said: “I didn’t understand the importance of radiotherapy treatment, and I certainly wouldn’t have pushed for it. I feel extremely lucky that my daughter asked the consultant whether radiotherapy was being recommended as she felt that this should be a clinical decision and not one based on how difficult it would be for me to get to the hospital! My resulting treatment was excellent and I’m glad to say I’ve had over 10 years of good health since my treatment to enjoy my family growing up.”

Jeremy Hughes, Chief Executive of Breakthrough Breast Cancer, said: “Ten years ago women like Daphne were not being given a full range of treatment options and our research has found this is still the case today, despite many advances in breast cancer treatment.

“With nearly 12,000 women dying of breast cancer each year it is scandalous that all women are not receiving equal access to the treatments they need. Breakthrough Breast Cancer’s Every Chance campaign highlights that in breast cancer treatment, where risk of disease increases with age, older patients could once again be discriminated against. Whoever forms the next Government needs to make sure that age equality is at the top of their agenda so we can put a stop to what doctors have
themselves called institutional ageism in the NHS (4).”

At the launch of the Breakthrough Breast Cancer Every Chance campaign at the House of Commons, Professor Malcolm Reed, Professor of Surgical Oncology at the University of Sheffield, said: “The past ten years have seen a significant improvement in survival for patients with cancer, particularly breast cancer. However older women have not shared in this improvement and there are concerns about the way this group of women are diagnosed and treated. We need to address this inequality as a priority by ensuring that access to diagnosis and treatment is improved whilst not losing sight of the importance of taking the overall health and wishes of each individual woman into account.”

The risk of breast cancer increases with age and currently a third of all breast cancers occur in women aged 70 and over. Experts (3) predict a rise from nearly 46,000 women diagnosed with breast cancer today, to 57,000 in 2024 – an increase of over 20% meaning potentially thousands more older breast cancer patients.

Older patients, and their relatives, who feel they may not have had full access to treatment and would like to help Breakthrough identify the barriers patients face are asked to email their experience to everychance@breakthrough.org.uk

Download the full press release here