On Tuesday, U. S. Researchers said that young patients with colon cancer are more likely to receive chemotherapy after surgery, compared to older people. However, according to a study in the Journal of the American Medical Association, when older patients get the treatment, it is likely to be less toxic.

Dr. Robert Fletcher of Harvard Medical School said that experiments have revealed that surgery accompanied with chemotherapy, helps patients to live longer than surgery alone, but the same cannot be confirmed for the elderly people.

"One of the main reasons people shy away from giving these drugs to older patients is that they might have more adverse events and we saw no evidence... that there was an increase in those adverse events", said Fletcher. He added that a key factor why older people do not receive chemotherapy is the perception that they have "fewer years to live".

The study said that doctors quoted dearth of clinical trials showing efficacy in older patients elderly patients, multiple illnesses and drug toxicity as the most common reasons for not treating elderly patients with chemotherapy after surgery.

Dr. Katherine Kahn of RAND Corporation, and colleagues examined the use of chemotherapy and side effects by age in a study involving 675 patients, keeping a track of them for up to 15 months following their diagnosis. The results showed that 75% of the patients received chemotherapy after surgery. Out of 202 patients 75 years and older, half of them received chemotherapy compared with 87% of younger patients.

Researchers said that adverse effects were minor in patients 75 years and older receiving chemotherapy, compared with younger patients.

Among patients receiving chemotherapy, adverse events were lower for patients 75 years and older compared with younger patients, the researchers said.