Background: Breast cancer is frequently diagnosed in older women. However, the impact of surgery on survival is not well studied and prognosis for women ≥ 80 years of age is progressively depending on comorbidities. Methods: Medical records of consecutive women aged ≥ 80 years diagnosed with primary breast cancer treated with upfront surgery at two Breast Centers from 2011 to 2021 were retrospectively analyzed. Results: A total of 553 consecutive women with a median age of 83 years and a median tumor diameter of 21 mm were analyzed (574 lesions). Clinical Stages II or III were found in 263/574 (46%) and 101/574 cases (18%), respectively. Axillary staging was completely omitted for 94/542 invasive lesions (17%), and this increased over time from 2% to 33% (p 80 years of age, and it is associated with a reasonable BCSS. De-escalation of adjuvant therapies should be considered in this setting because survival is largely determined by age and co-morbidities.
Piccolino et al. (Thu,) studied this question.