Why cancer spreads more in middle age than in old age
Key takeaways
- Cancer becomes more common with age and is often harder to treat in older adults.
- That gap may help explain why many cancer therapies that perform well in laboratory studies ultimately fail in human clinical trials.
- New findings from Fox Chase Cancer Center, presented at the American Association for Cancer Research annual meeting, suggest that melanoma does not behave the same way throughout the aging process.
Why this matters: new research or scientific developments with potential real-world impact.
Cancer becomes more common with age and is often harder to treat in older adults. Yet most cancer studies in mice do not reflect that reality. Fewer than 10% of mouse experiments use aged animals, with researchers typically relying on mice that roughly correspond to humans in their early 20s.
That gap may help explain why many cancer therapies that perform well in laboratory studies ultimately fail in human clinical trials.
New findings from Fox Chase Cancer Center, presented at the American Association for Cancer Research annual meeting, suggest that melanoma does not behave the same way throughout the aging process. Researchers found that cancer spread was lowest in young mice, reached its highest level in middle aged mice, and then declined again in very old mice.