Battling Cancer

Age is a tricky factor when it comes to health. There are so many different processes that are unique to the aging body that an entire field of medicine exists to study them. While a cancer diagnosis is not an age-specific event, however, it seems that many doctors are prescribing treatment plans as if it were.

Too Little, Too Late?  In a 2006 study published in the Journal of Gerontology, primary care physicians were surveyed about what type of cancer screening they would give to a hypothetical 70, 80, or 90 year-old female patient. Interestingly, physicians tended to “over screen” older, frail patients who were within five years of their median life expectancy and “under screen” healthier patients who were over ten years away from their median life expectancy.

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