Why Age Matters in Cancer and How Fox Chase Is Closing a Critical Gap

Mitchell Fane, PhD, an Assistant Professor in the Cancer Signaling and Microenvironment Research Program.

Cancer is largely a disease of aging. Most people diagnosed with cancer are in their 60s, 70s, or older, yet much of what scientists know about cancer and how to treat it comes from studies that do not reflect that reality.

At Fox Chase Cancer Center, researcher Mitchell Fane, PhD, is leading efforts to close that gap. His work focuses on a question with enormous implications for patients: how aging changes cancer risk, treatment response, and side effects, and how care can be improved for older adults.

"For decades, we have treated age as a background detail rather than a central factor in cancer. But aging affects the immune system, how tumors behave, and how patients tolerate therapy. We can't ignore it anymore," said Fane, an Assistant Professor in the Cancer Signaling and Microenvironment Research Program.

Why Age Matters in Cancer Care

Age is one of the strongest risk factors for nearly every type of cancer. Cancer is also often more aggressive and harder to treat in older patients. Despite this, aging has long been overlooked in cancer research.

That gap matters. Treatments that work well in younger patients may not work the same way in older ones. Side effects may be more severe. And promising therapies can fail in clinical trials because they were never tested in models that reflect the typical cancer patient.

Fane's research aims to close that gap and help move cancer care toward a more realistic and personalized approach, especially for older adults.

A Personal Story Behind the Science

Fane's interest in aging and cancer is not just academic, it is personal.

"My grandmother developed melanoma later in life and eventually passed away," he said. "She was offered immunotherapy, but she believed she was too old and frail to tolerate it."

At the same time, Fane was working in a research lab studying melanoma and aging. The data suggested that immunotherapy could actually work well in older patients.

"I couldn't help but think that if there had been more research, and more confidence in treating older patients, she might have had a different set of options," he said.

That experience helped shape his career and solidified his focus on improving cancer care for older adults, particularly when standard treatments fail or are withheld due to age alone.

Rethinking How Cancer Is Studied

One of the biggest problems Fane is tackling lies at the foundation of cancer research: the models scientists use to test new treatments.

Today, an estimated 95% of preclinical cancer studies use very young mice, roughly equivalent to humans in their late teens or early 20s. But the median age of cancer diagnosis in people is around 65.

"The biology just doesn't match," Fane said. "We are testing drugs in young, healthy immune systems and then expecting them to behave the same way in much older patients. That is a major reason so many drugs fail when they reach human trials."

A New Resource at Fox Chase: Studying Cancer in Older Bodies

To address this problem, Fane helped establish Fox Chase's new aged mouse facility, along with colleague Yash Chhabra, PhD, an Assistant Professor in the Cancer Signaling and Microenvironment Research Program. The new facility allows researchers to study cancer in mice that more closely reflect the age of real cancer patients.

Creating these models requires a major investment. Mice must be bred and cared for 18 months to two years before they are considered "aged." The cost and time involved have historically discouraged their use.

But Fane believes the effort is essential.

"Now we have a shared resource where aged mice are available," he said. "That lowers the barrier for researchers to ask a simple but important question: does this treatment work the same way in older systems?"

The facility is now ready to support experiments across Fox Chase, opening the door to more age-appropriate cancer research.

What This Could Mean for Patients

Understanding how aging affects cancer could lead to better treatment decisions, fewer unnecessary side effects, and more options for older patients.

Fane points to immunotherapy as an example. For years, it was assumed to be too toxic for older adults. But as more elderly patients have been included in clinical trials, researchers have found that many tolerate these treatments well-and benefit from them.

"That assumption is beginning to change," Fane said. "But it took better data to get there."

Another major focus of his work is a long-standing mystery: why cancer risk rises with age, but then appears to decline after age 80 or 85.

"We want to understand why very old individuals seem to develop less cancer than expected," he said. "If we can uncover those mechanisms, they could inform entirely new prevention or treatment strategies."

Fox Chase Filling a Critical Gap

Over the past three years, Fane has received more than $850,000 in early-career research funding from organizations including the V Foundation and the Melanoma Research Alliance. His work was featured at the American Association for Cancer Research Annual Meeting, where two studies from his lab were presented.

Together, his research and Fox Chase's investment in aging-focused models position the center as a leader in an area of cancer research that is increasingly impossible to ignore, because it reflects the reality of who cancer patients are.

"Most cancer patients are older," Fane said. "If we want better outcomes, we have to stop treating age as an afterthought and start designing our science around it."