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Too Many Older Patients Get Cancer Screenings
Mrs. Altemus, who entered a nursing home in November, was screened for breast cancer this summer. “If the screening is not too invasive, why not?” asked her daughter, Dorothy Altemus. “I want her to have the best quality of life possible.”
But a growing chorus of geriatricians, cancer specialists and health system analysts say that say that for the best quality of life, she’d be better off skipping the screening. Such testing in the nation’s oldest patients is highly unlikely to detect lethal disease. It is also hugely expensive and more likely to harm than help, since any follow-up testing and treatment is often invasive.
“In patients well into their 80s, with other chronic conditions, it’s highly unlikely that they will receive any benefit from screening, and more likely that the harms will outweigh the benefits,” said Dr. Cary Gross, a professor at the Yale School of Medicine.
Source: New York Times