A new study has raised questions about whether older men are less likely to receive potentially life-saving prostate cancer treatments simply because of their age.
The study, published recently in the Journal of Clinical Oncology and conducted by researchers from the University of California, San Francisco, showed that men over age 75 had a significantly lower chance of receiving potentially curative treatment than men who were 55 or younger.
The authors of the study suggest that this discrepancy in receiving treatment may, in part, explain why older men have much higher rates of prostate cancer related mortality. They suggest that prostate cancer physicians should focus more on the overall health and life expectancy of older men rather than simply the chronological age of these men when making recommendations about treatment.
The researchers suggest that older men with a life expectancy of 10 years or more be recommended for treatment.
