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Treatment decisions for older women with breast cancer are complicated by various factors: Compared with their younger counterparts, older women have more comorbidities, a shorter life expectancy independent of the breast cancer, and less-aggressive tumors on average.
In this study, Italian researchers followed 354 women (age range, 70–92) with early breast cancer (<3 cm in size, no palpable axillary nodes, and no distant metastases); 94% of cancers were estrogen-receptor–positive. All women underwent breast-conserving surgery and received adjuvant tamoxifen, but none underwent axillary dissection, sentinel node biopsy, postoperative radiotherapy, or adjuvant chemotherapy. During a median follow-up of 15 years, 13% of women died of breast ca…