Lower Breast Cancer Mortality in Patients Aged 70+ Achievable.

The last sentence of the article requires further comment: “US breast cancer patients >70 years of age have a higher 5-year survival rate than German patients” (1). The authors mention that systemic treatment is less frequently provided with advancing age. However, this only applies to aggressive chemotherapy, not to antihormonal therapy. Regarding the range of side effects associated with antihormonal treatment, it has to be distinguished between aromatase inhibitors and tamoxifen. The latter directly targets the cancer cell. Its use over a period of 10 years is superior to that over 5 years and results in a better prognosis (2): 21% recurrence rate vs. 25%, and 12% mortality rate vs. 15%, respectively.