J Breast Cancer.  2005 Sep;8(3):134-137. 10.4048/jbc.2005.8.3.134.

Three Cases of Elderly Women with Breast Cancer treated with Non-operative Methods

• Cho MH
• Lee HK
• Park MH
• Yoon JH
• Jaegal YJ

• KMID: 2174956
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.4048/jbc.2005.8.3.134

Abstract

The mainstay of treatment in primary breast cancer is still a radical mastectomy. In the case of advanced breast cancer, preoperative chemotherapy is an alternative treatment method to induce surgical therapy. Although the number of elderly patients with breast cancer is increasing, the knowledge about the possible differences in the biology and clinical outcomes of breast cancer according to age is limited. In addition, elderly patients have difficulties with surgical treatment because of the higher rate of coincident systemic illness, high anesthetic risk and high rate of operation refusals for an operation than those in young patients. As it was well known that elderly patients have better prognoses than younger patients and more estrogen and progesterone receptors in tumor tissue, it was expected that oral chemoendocrine and radiation therapy could be an alternative in elderly patients who refuse surgery. Good results were experienced in our three elderly breast cancer patients when applying these non-surgical treatments.

Keyword

Elderly women with breast cancer; Non-surgical treatment

MeSH Terms

Aged*
Biology
Breast Neoplasms*
Breast*
Drug Therapy
Estrogens
Female
Humans
Mastectomy, Radical
Prognosis
Receptors, Progesterone
Estrogens
Receptors, Progesterone