Tuesday, December 13, 2011

Are Too Many Older People Screened for Cancer?

Are Too Many Older People Screened for Cancer?

MONDAY, Dec. 12 (HealthDay News) -- Many comparison Americans get screened for colon, breast, prostate and cervical cancer even yet guidelines suggest opposite customarily screening a elderly, a new investigate finds.

As a race of a United States continues to age, balancing good health care with costs will be a stability battle, experts say. "In an era of sharpening health caring function and expenditures in a United States, identifying areas for cost containment while parallel improving peculiarity of caring in a health caring complement is increasingly paramount," pronounced lead researcher Keith Bellizzi, an partner highbrow of tellurian growth and family studies during a University of Connecticut in Storrs.

"Perhaps this area of health caring warrants serve attention," Bellizzi added.

Currently, scarcely 37 million people in a United States are 65 and older, and that series will substantially double by 2030. Historically, comparison adults have been released from cancer clinical trials, so what is famous about a efficacy of screening in seniors is limited, he said.

The U.S. Preventive Services Task Force recommends opposite routine screening for breast, colorectal, and prostate cancer during age 75 and beyond, and advises opposite cervical cancer contrast after 65, according to the study.

But many comparison adults currently live longer, healthier lives than progressing generations, so it is expected that continued screening for certain segments of a comparison adult race is warranted, he said.

"At a same time, there are segments of a comparison adult race with singular life expectancy, bad health standing and concommitant health conditions that would expected not advantage from screening. The plea is, how do we make this determination?" Bellizzi said.

To asses a superiority of screening among a elderly, Bellizzi's group collected information on roughly 50,000 group and women who took partial in a U.S. National Health Interview Survey.

Among women 75 to 79 years old, 62 percent had perceived a mammogram to screen for breast cancer in a past dual years, as had 50 percent of women 80 and older. Pap screens for cervical cancer were finished on 53 percent of women 75 to 79, and 38 percent of women 80 and older, a researchers found.

Fifty-seven percent of group and women 75 to 79 were screened for colon cancer in a prior dual years.

Prostate cancer screening was undertaken by 57 percent of those 75 to 79; 42 percent of group 80 and older; and 40 percent of those 50 to 74, a researchers found.

The investigate is published in a Dec. 12/26 emanate of a Archives of Internal Medicine.

People over 75 were many expected to be screened for breast, colorectal, and prostate cancer if a alloy endorsed it, Bellizzi's group found. Also, college-educated group and women were many expected to be screened, while those though a high propagandize diploma were slightest expected to get screened.

There is no "one distance fits all solution," Bellizzi said. "Screening decisions should be inpidualized formed on life expectancy, health status, an sensitive contention with a studious about a intensity harms and benefits, and studious values and preferences."

Dr. Louise C. Walter, an partner highbrow of medicine during a University of California, San Francisco, and author of an concomitant journal editorial, concluded that age should not be a solitary determinant of screening.

"What we unequivocally wish to do is inspire inpidualized decisions," Walter said, suggesting that doctors import ubiquitous health and life expectancy before recommending cancer screening.

"There are lots of really healthy people that have prolonged life expectancy, and cancer increases as we get older, so it creates clarity to get screened," she said.

But there are also a lot of really ill people for whom screening can be harmful, she added, referring to a hazards of certain procedures and treatments that competence not save lives.

Dr. Otis Brawley, arch medical officer during a American Cancer Society, conceded some aged Americans competence be possibilities for screening, though said "the strenuous infancy of folks over 75 should not be removing these screening tests, since we have no scholarship that shows these tests are going to advantage these folks by creation them live longer."

"This is an instance of waste," he said. "We need to consider about a rational use of health caring and stop articulate about a rationing of health care.

"Many docs are grouping these exam quite to cover themselves" from a lawsuit, he added.

More information

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News referensi http://news.yahoo.com/too-many-older-people-screened-cancer-210410267.html