What is it about?
The life expectancy of the world's elderly population (65 and older) continues to reach new milestones with older individuals currently comprising greater than 8.5% (617 million) of the world's population. This percentage is predicted to approach 20% of the world's population by 2050 (representing 1.6 billion people). Despite this amazing feat, many healthcare systems are not equipped to handle the multitude of diseases that commonly manifest with age, including most types of cancers. As the world's aging population grows, cancer treatments continue to evolve. Immunotherapies are a new drug class that has revolutionized our ability to treat previously intractable cancers; however, their efficacy in patients with compromised immune systems remains unclear. In this review, we will discuss how aging-associated losses in immune homeostasis impact the efficacy and safety of immunotherapy treatment in preclinical models of aging. We will also discuss how these findings translate to elderly patients receiving immunotherapy treatment for refractory and relapsed cancers, as well as, strategies that could be explored to improve the efficacy of immunotherapies in aged patients.
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Why is it important?
Individuals over the age of 65 are predicted to comprise greater that 40% of the world's population by 2050. This great achievement comes with the obligation of providing optimal care for older patients with various diseases including cancer. Given that compromised immunity is a hallmark of aging, it is imperative to understand how to optimize the safety and efficacy of emerging immune-based therapies for older patients.
Perspectives
Immunotherapy studies conducted in older backgrounds (pre-clinical and clinical) are sparse and must increase in order to provide optimal care to older patients. This review sheds light on both areas and will hopefully stimulate fruitful discussion around this topic. Equally important, we sincerely hope this work will spur the biomedical community to address this issue as our aging population continues to grow worldwide.
Curtis Henry
Read the Original
This page is a summary of: Aging and immunotherapies: New horizons for the golden ages, Aging and Cancer, September 2020, Wiley,
DOI: 10.1002/aac2.12014.
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