Cathy Bradley, of the Virginia Commonwealth University Massey Cancer Center, in Richmond, and colleagues assessed the cancer care received by elderly nursing home residents who were insured by Medicaid.

They identified 1,907 nursing home residents diagnosed with cancer. They analyzed the patient data by cancer stage at diagnosis, type of cancer, survival time, and whether the patient received surgery or hospice care, as well as other variables.

The study, published in the Journal of the National Cancer Institute, found 62 percent of the nursing home residents with cancer had late or unstaged disease when they were diagnosed, and almost half died within three months of diagnosis.

Among patients with late stage cancer, 28 percent received hospice care. Patients ages 71 to 75 were three times more likely to have surgery than patients aged 86 and older, the study found.