Every Chance
The risk of breast cancer increases with age. However, older women are less likely to receive chemotherapy and radiotherapy. Breast cancer patients aged over 80 are 40 times less likely to receive surgery.
Breakthrough’s Every Chance campaign aims to ensure that all women with breast cancer have access to the most appropriate treatment, services and care that will benefit them, regardless of age.
This is a long term campaign and a broad ranging issue. Our work is currently focused on breast awareness and screening for older women and we are working to ensure that all women over 70, who are no longer routinely invited to breast screening, have every chance to access this important service.
We will shortly begin work on issues around access to clinical trials for older women. We know that older women are underrepresented in clinical trials and we want to fully understand the reasons for this.
We will be working with a range of stakeholders to identify the barriers that prevent older patients taking part in clinical trials and identify possible solutions.
