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Immunosenescence and Cancer Immunotherapy at Old Age: Basics

  • Living reference work entry
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Geriatric Oncology

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Abstract

Age is the single most important risk factor for cancer development. Of the many age-associated changes paralleling increased cancer incidence, those of the immune system may play a major role in waning defense against tumorigenesis. Thus, immunosenescence may contribute to the higher rate of occurrence of tumors in the elderly. However, exactly how these age-related changes in immunity translate to cancer development is not well defined and understood. With the dramatic recent successes of immunotherapy in some patients for some tumors, there is an increasing concern that immunosenescence may temper responses in older patients. Nonetheless, existing anecdotal data suggest that success rates and side effects of first-generation checkpoint blockade immunotherapy in elderly patients are similar to those in younger subjects. However, success rates are still low, with only a fraction of patients obtaining clinical benefit in most trials, and it cannot yet be excluded that age may play a role in the failure of some therapies in some patients. Thus, although there are no reasons to refuse the elderly these treatments, appropriate clinical trials and not just anecdotal evidence are required to explore this issue further.

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Acknowledgments

This work was partly supported by grants from the Canadian Institutes of Health Research (No. 106634 and No. 106701), the Université de Sherbrooke, and the Research Center on Aging, a grant from the Croeni Foundation (GP), Polish Ministry of Science and Higher Education statutory grant 02-0058/07/262 to JMW, and Agency for Science Technology and Research (A*STAR) to AL.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Research Center on Aging, Graduate Program in Immunology, Faculty of Medicine and Health Sciences, University of Sherbrooke, Sherbrooke, QC, Canada

    Tamas Fulop

  2. Department of Pathophysiology, Medical University of Gdańsk, Gdańsk, Poland

    J. M. Witkowski

  3. Department of Pathology, Nitobe Memorial Nakano General Hospital, Institute for Health and Life Sciences, Tokyo, Japan

    K. Hirokawa

  4. Singapore Immunology Network (SIgN), Agency for Science Technology and Research (A-Star), Singapore, Singapore

    A. Larbi

  5. Department of Internal Medicine II, Center for Medical Research, University of Tübingen, Tübingen, Germany

    G. Pawelec

  6. Health Sciences North Research Institute, Sudbury, ON, Canada

    G. Pawelec

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  1. Tamas Fulop
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  3. K. Hirokawa
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  4. A. Larbi
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  5. G. Pawelec
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Correspondence to Tamas Fulop .

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  1. Senior Adult Oncology Program, Moffitt Cancer Center, Tampa, Florida, USA

    Martine Extermann

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  1. Research Center on Aging, Department of Medicine, Immunology Graduate Programme, Faculty of Medicine, University of Sherbrooke, Sherbrooke, QC, Canada

    T. Fulop

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Fulop, T., Witkowski, J.M., Hirokawa, K., Larbi, A., Pawelec, G. (2018). Immunosenescence and Cancer Immunotherapy at Old Age: Basics. In: Extermann, M. (eds) Geriatric Oncology . Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-44870-1_77-1

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