Between the ages of 69 and 70, recommendations for adjuvant treatment for early-stage breast cancer are weakening, study finds. International Journal of Radiation Oncology, Biology, Physics Published online in the latest issue.
Wesley J. Talcott and colleagues at Yale University identified two cohorts of any age who underwent mastectomy for early-stage breast cancer between 2004 and 2017, with strong indicators for adjuvant treatment.
Cohort 1 had 160,990 participants and was at higher risk and eligible for radiation therapy.
Cohort 2 had 394,946 participants, had hormone receptor positivity with tumors less than 5 mm, and had received endocrine therapy.
In Cohort 1, the research team found that the recommendation for radiation therapy declined sharply at age 70, from 90 to 92% at age 50 to 69 to 81% at age 70.
At age 69 versus age 70, the annual age difference was a separate predictor of adjuvant radiation recommendation (odds ratio, 0.47).
For cohort 2, there was a slight decrease in endocrine therapy recommendation among 70-year-old participants, and the only annual age-specific difference for the index of endocrine therapy recommendation was for predictors aged 70 versus 69 years.
“We observed a unique decline in the recommendation of appropriate adjuvant therapy between the ages of 69 and 70 years. This is a previously unexplained phenomenon in early-stage breast cancer.”
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