Cancer treatment is ‘ biased against elderly patients’
THE elderly are being denied life-saving cancer surgery due to an age bias in the NHS, researchers warn.
They found that patients’ chances of undergoing vital operations decline sharply with age for all of the most common types of tumour.
For prostate cancer, almost nobody has surgery once they reach 75 whereas it is offered to more than a quarter of men under 55. And women with ovarian cancer over the age of 75 are half as likely to have surgery as those under 55, according to a major study by Cancer Research UK.
Britain has among the worst cancer survival rates in Western Europe and the gap is even wider for the elderly who are more likely to die from the disease than
‘Some of the worst survival rates’
those in France, Germany and Scandinavia. One explanation is that they are being written off before the first consultation by doctors who only look at their date of birth.
Nick Ormiston-Smith, Cancer Research UK’s head of statistics, said: ‘These figures provide further detail about the age bias that older cancer patients face. If older patients are not being offered a surgical option, that is wrong.
‘We do have lower treatment rates than other countries and this is more pronounced in older people. We have lower survival rates in older people, that could be explained by lower access to treatment.’
The research – overseen by the National Cancer Intelligence Network, the government agency which analyses data – looked at 367,000 patients who underwent surgery in England between 2006 and 2010. This covered 21 types of cancer and for each one, academics worked out the percentage of patients having surgery in five age groups.
They found that while 29 per cent of men with prostate cancer aged 15 to 54 had surgery, it fell to 0.1 per cent for those aged 75 to 84 – and nobody had it over 85.
This means that just 48 potentially life- saving operations to remove prostate cancer are carried out in men over 75 in England every year.
For women with ovarian cancer, just 37 per cent aged 75 to 84 had operations to remove tumours compared to 89 per cent in the 15 to 54 age group.
Duleep Allirajah, of Macmillan Cancer Support, said: ‘This is yet more upsetting evidence that older cancer patients in England are getting a raw deal, despite the fact that half of people diagnosed with cancer are in this age bracket.’
Surgery is considered the most effective treatment for cancer and is responsible for half of the cases where the illness is cured.
Not all elderly patients will be suitable for treatment and those with other health problems such as dementia or heart disease may just be too frail. Others may not want to undergo a potentially risky procedure.
In October 2012 new laws came into force banning all NHS staff from denying treatment to the elderly based on their age alone. Although this research took place two years before this came into force, there is ample evidence the age discrimination is still widespread.
Sean Duffy of NHS England said: ‘A person’s age should not be a barrier to getting the most effective treatments. It’s clear that more needs to be done to ensure older patients have equal access to treatment.’