Older bladder cancer patients are less likely than younger patients to receive treatments intended to cure their disease such as surgery to remove the bladder or radiotherapy.
However, this difference cannot be fully explained by age, according to research published in the British Journal of Cancer. Researchers, funded by Yorkshire Cancer Research at the University of Sheffield, looked at the records of around 3,300 bladder cancer patients diagnosed in Sheffield between 1994 and 2009. They wanted to investigate how age, type of bladder cancer and treatment affected the chances of surviving the disease. The research found that 52% of patients under the age of 60 had potentially curative treatments such as surgery or radiotherapy, compared with 34% of patients in their 70s and only 12% of patients over 80. Older patients over 70 were more likely to die of their bladder cancer than younger patients. It is believed that the higher number of deaths in those over 70 is because these patients had a higher proportion of more aggressive tumours and were less likely to receive radical treatments such as radiotherapy or surgery to remove the bladder and nearby organs.
