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’Age has no correlation with cancer treatment’
By Ji-yeon Kim, Intern reporter
Age has no correlation with cancer treatment: study
The effectiveness of cancer treatment depends on the patient’s willingness to survive and physical condition rather than their age, a recent survey showed.
Professor Lee Sang-hyub from Seoul National University Bundang Hospital conducted a study on 531 patients diagnosed with biliary tract cancer from 2003 to 2011. The average survival period for 205 patients over 65 and 326 patients under 65 was 15 months and 11 months, respectively.
The study, published in Journal of the American Geriatrics Society, found that biliary tract cancer patients who received 10 months’ treatment survived three times longer than patients who received three months’ treatment. It showed that strong cardiac function was the influencing factor, not age, when it came to biliary tract cancer treatment.
“Since age is not a decisive factor when it comes to curing cancer, eating a low-fat, healthful diet and exercising regularly is more important to bring out effective treatment effects,” said Lee.
Surgery is known to be the only cure for the disease but only 40 to 50 percent of patients can have extensive parts of their biliary tract removed.
(jiyeon.kim23@heraldcorp.com)