Elderly women are being denied treatments for breast cancer

Many women with breast cancer are being denied treatment that could extend their lives because doctors are making judgments about their health on grounds of age, said cancer specialists this week.

Yet half the women who get breast cancer are aged over 65, and of these women 60% will die from the disease, said Professor Ian Fentiman, professor of surgical oncology at Guy's Hospital, London, at a debate on breast cancer in elderly women held in London by …