After seeing someone close go through the most rigorous regimen of chemo there is for 5 months, then a lesser chemo for an additional 7 months, combined with radiation and hormone therapy, and seeing what kind of devastation it worked on her, both in short-term and long-term side effects, I'd have to say that I too would refuse the chemotherapy at age 72. Heck, I'm not sure I'd do it at half that age either! But I don't have a wife and kids to look out for, so maybe that influences my decision.
There's a reason a cure for cancer is the holy grail of medicine. The current treatments are horrific to go through, and horrific to see someone you love go through.
My father got the lung cancer, treated at 90. He had a mass on his scans for ages but they kept thinking it might be something else till some boffin figured, hey maybe biopsey. He did quit smoking 40 years earlier and my smoking mother died 20 years earlier [of lung cancer, so even with no smoking, I'm probably fucked]
So anyways, at 90 and not in the best shape, they wouldn't even consider surgery or chemo. Radiation was tolerated well.
Cancer guy said they probably got it all, but couldn't really tell because reasons.
Turns out he was dead within a year of fluid build up in the lungs [also issues of questionable incompetence but meh]
They said his heart function dropped from 70 to 35% probably either from a unknown heart attack or maybe radiation hit the heart.
Either way the first doc basically told him to fuck off and die, with the idea that ANY treatment would be too hard and he would likely die of something else [that part seems true]
Second doc said he was a good candidate for radiation, and he was.
I trust in medical science, but whenever people say "I listen to my doctor" I kinda want to punch them in the face, up there with looking at 1 study vs all the studies. Never mind asshats like Dr Oz and Mercola who are charlatans.