There has been a recent surge of interest in the general topic of how older patients should be treated with various forms of malignancy, with particular focus on the management of breast cancer. This group of patients has been neglected in the past, with a failure to recruit them to clinical trials resulting in a lack of evidence on which to base treatment guidelines. The co-editors on this title are directly involved in a number of initiatives to address this gap in knowledge, and are thus perfectly placed to invite other expert individuals to author specific chapters in the proposed text.