Nature communications

How the speed of face aging measures biological age and predicts cancer outcomes

Updated

Abstract

Essence

Faster facially estimated biological aging was associated with worse survival among cancer patients receiving radiation therapy.

Evidence

This retrospective prognostic analysis used serial clinical facial photographs from 2276 cancer patients and found higher Face Aging Rate linked to worse overall survival across short, mid, and long photograph intervals.

Caveat

The biomarker was tested observationally in radiation-therapy patients using routine photographs, so it adds prognostic information but does not show that altering Face Aging Rate changes outcomes.

Simplified

Full Text

Full text is available at the source.

Funding

Competing interests

Competing interests: R.H.M. reports being on an Advisory Board for ViewRay and AstraZeneca; Consulting for AstraZeneca, Pfizer, Varian Medical Systems, and Sio Capital Management; Honorarium from Novartis and Springer Nature; and Research Funding from the National Institute of Health, ViewRay, AstraZeneca, Siemens Medical Solutions USA, Inc., and Varian Medical Systems. DSB reports Editorial, unrelated to this work: Associate Editor of Radiation Oncology, HemOnc.org (no financial compensation); Research funding, unrelated to this work: American Cancer Society, American Society for Radiation Oncology, National Institutes of Health; Advisory and consulting, unrelated to this work: Mercurial AI. H.J.W.L.A. reports advising and consulting for Onc.AI, Love Health, Sphera, Editas, AstraZeneca, and Bristol Myers Squibb, unrelated to this work. B.H.K. reports research funding from the Botha-Chan Low Grade Glioma Consortium (National Institutes of Health [NIH]-USA K08DE030216-01). F.H., R.H.M., and H.J.W.L.A. report that Mass General Brigham has filed provisional patents on two next-generation facial health algorithms, including FaceAge (US Provisional Application No. 63/769,840). G.L., J.H., A.W., D.B., P.J.C., V.P., S.P., and C.G. declare no competing interests.
PubMed

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