A new analysis of a national cancer database finds a bump in cancer diagnoses at age 65.<\/p>\n
The finding suggests many people wait until they are eligible for Medicare before they seek care.<\/p>\n
A couple of years ago, Joseph Shrager, professor of cardiothoracic surgery at Stanford School of Medicine, noticed a statistical anomaly in his practice. It seemed that patients were diagnosed with lung cancer at a surprisingly higher rate at 65 years old than, say, at 64 or 66.<\/p>\n
“There was no reason rates should differ much between the ages of 63 and 65,” Shrager says. He talked it over with his thoracic surgeon colleagues at Stanford who said they were seeing something similar. They wondered if the jump in diagnoses<\/a> might be a result of patients delaying care until they became Medicare eligible at 65.<\/p>\n
In a follow-up study published in Cancer<\/a><\/em>, the researchers found a substantial rise nationwide in new cancer diagnoses at 65\u2014not only for lung cancer but also for breast, colon, and prostate cancer. The four are the most common cancers in the United States.<\/p>\n
The study shows that insured cancer patients<\/a> (lung, breast, colon, prostate) older than 65 are more likely to undergo surgical intervention, and they had lower five-year cancer-specific mortality rates than did their younger uninsured counterparts.<\/p>\n
The authors have no conflicts of interest or funding sources related to this study.<\/p>\n
Source: <\/em>Stanford University<\/em><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"