Aging and cancer are deeply interconnected, influencing one another across the lifespan through immune decline, tissue changes, and cumulative environmental exposures, urging age-tailored approaches to cancer prevention, treatment, and research.
January 2025 – Aging Cell
Source: DeGregori, James, et al. “Aging and Cancer—Inextricably Linked Across the Lifespan.” Aging Cell, vol. 24, 2025, e14483. https://doi.org/10.1111/acel.14483.
Reproduced from DeGregori et al., Aging Cell (2025), under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY 4.0).
Key takeaways
- Age shapes cancer evolution: Changes in tissue health, immune function, and the tumour microenvironment across the lifespan alter how cancers initiate, evolve, and respond to therapy, underscoring the importance of integrating biological age into prevention and treatment strategies
- Therapeutic outcomes depend on age: As people age, factors like immune decline, comorbidities, treatment history, and tissue resilience affect the efficacy and safety of cancer therapies, making age-specific approaches vital for optimising outcomes and quality of life
- Biological ageing clocks offer insight: Emerging tools such as DNA methylation and proteomic clocks are helping to clarify how intrinsic and extrinsic ageing processes increase cancer risk and treatment resistance, offering new avenues for personalised interventions
- Breaking silos to accelerate innovation: Advancing cancer treatment in the context of ageing will require stronger collaborations across geroscience, oncology, biotechnology, and funding agencies to develop more inclusive clinical trials, relevant models, and equitable access to age-adapted care
Read the article at: DeGregori, James, et al. “Aging and Cancer—Inextricably Linked Across the Lifespan.” Aging Cell, vol. 24, 2025, e14483. https://doi.org/10.1111/acel.14483.