Thousands of women might be able to skip some of the tiresome treatments for breast cancer - which can include surgery, heavy chemo and radiation - without greatly harming their odds of survival, new research suggests, CBS news reports.

The research is aimed at curbing overtreatment, a big problem in cancer care. Treatments help many women beat the disease, but giving too many or ones that aren't really needed causes unnecessary expense, trauma and lifelong side effects, such as arm swelling and heart troubles. Radiation can even raise the risk of new cancers.

Several studies presented at the San Antonio Breast Cancer Symposium, an international conference on the disease, identify groups of patients who might be able to safely forgo certain treatments.

One found that many older women can skip radiation after surgery for early-stage tumors. Two others suggest that surgery may not help patients whose cancer has already spread widely. A fourth study tested a "light chemo" combination that could become a new standard of care.

The trend is "less and less therapy" for certain cancer types, said one conference leader, Dr. C. Kent Osborne of Baylor College of Medicine.

Dr. Rajendra Badwe, director of the Tata Memorial Hospital in Mumbai, India, led a study of 350 women with widely spread cancers that had shrunk after initial chemotherapy. Half were given surgery to remove the breast or the lump plus any cancerous lymph nodes. The rest did not have surgery.

After about two years, 40 percent of both groups were alive, suggesting that medicines are enough and that these women can be spared the ordeal of having all or part of a breast removed.

Most breast cancers are found at an early stage, and many women are treated with surgery followed by hormones or chemotherapy, plus radiation. But cancer medicines have gotten so good at lowering the risk of a recurrence that doctors wonder whether the radiation is still needed. It can cause heart and other problems, especially in older women, and three or four weeks of daily treatments can be a burden.

Dr. Ian Kunkler of the University of Edinburgh in Scotland led a study of 1,326 patients 65 or older with early-stage cancers. This is the most common form of the disease and the age group that accounts for most cases. Half were given radiation and half skipped it.

After five years, roughly 96 percent of both groups were alive, and most deaths were not from breast cancer. About 1 percent of those given radiation had cancer recur in the treated breast versus 4 percent of those who skipped radiation.