Cancer Care: Is Less More?

Breast cancer grows so slowly in an older woman, say doctors, that she can skip the radiation therapy most women endure after surgery. In two studies in the New England Journal of Medicine, researchers followed breast-cancer survivors whose small tumors had been treated with lumpectomy and tamoxifen — with or without radiation. In nearly 8% of women ages 50 and older, cancer came back in the same breast without radiation; with treatment, the relapse rate was less than 1%. In women ages 70 and up, only 4% relapsed without radiation, compared with 1% who had had treatment.