Women diagnosed with breast cancer after 70 twice as likely to die from it.

Women diagnosed with breast cancer after the age of 70 are twice as likely to die from it, because they are being denied treatment, an international study has found. The major research on more than 200,000 breast cancer patients found mortality rates were far higher among older women – even though the disease was no more aggressive. Regardless of severity of disease, the women diagnosed over the age of 70 were twice as likely to die from it, the study found. The research found chemotherapy levels were far lower among older women, when they were matched against younger patients with the same severity of disease. The study by Genomic Health, a company that has a test diagnosing which breast cancer patients are likely to suffer a recurrence of disease, and which are most likely to benefit from chemotherapy, found older women were less likely to be offered tests.Last year a study found older women are three times as likely to die from breast cancer in England compared with other European nation.more