Biggest benefit was seen post-surgery in people over 65, research suggests
THURSDAY, April 14, 2016 (HealthDay News) — Older patients with soft-tissue sarcomas may benefit more from radiation therapy after surgery than younger patients do, according to research published in the April issue of Anticancer Research.
The new study looked at information from 15,380 U.S. adults with localized soft-tissue sarcomas. Some were treated with surgery alone, while others had surgery and radiation. Treatments occurred between 1990 and 2011.
Radiation after surgery improved survival compared to surgery alone, but this was seen mostly in patients 65 and older.
“We found that older patients had a survival benefit with radiation, but in younger patients, many of those benefits went away,” principal investigator Robert Canter, M.D., an associate professor of surgery at the University of California, Davis, said in a university news release. “It seems that older patients respond better to the combination of surgery and radiation.”
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