[Breast cancer: an example of changing practices that take age-related factors into account. About the ASTER 70s...

According to figures from GLOBOCAN and the European Cancer Information System, nearly 40% of breast cancers occur in women aged 70 and over in France. Breast cancer, the most common cancer in women, has been the subject of several specific studies on the elderly population. As such, it provides numerous examples of the possible and necessary adaptation of strategies according to age, the increased risks of certain treatments, and the efforts to be made with the patients concerned to trigger a participatory reform movement in research, to make it more useful for the growing and already predominant elderly population.  The ASTER 70s clinical study, a phase III randomized trial, illustrate this citizen-led transformation; that addressed the essential question of the benefit of adjuvant chemotherapy for hormone-sensitive (luminal) breast cancer after the age of 70. Published in July 2025 in The Lancet, the public release of this study led to the creation of a national collective to better represent the voices of elderly subjects in cancer research.