Cancer "cures" in children, adolescents and young adults versus general cancer cure failure after 50 years of age.
Cancer cure has principally concerned stem cell or embryonic cell tumors in children, adolescents and adults under 50 years of age. Cancers that are termed "curable" are those in which the patient survival curve rapidly becomes parallel to the normal life expectancy curve--a plateau in children--and "almost curable" those in which this phenomenon appears later on and/or which is not completely parallel to the normal life expectancy curve. The failure to cure cancer patients over 50 years of age by chemotherapy suggests that although cytostatics are able to reduce the neoplastic cell number to a level that can be eradicated by the lato sensu immunologic functions of the organism before that age, this is not the case in older patients in which even a low number of neoplastic cells cannot be destroyed in this manner. Experimental and clinical data on preventive and curative effects of immuno-restoration/stimulation after the age of 50 are presented and discussed, as well as both reduced cancer patient survival rate and decreased immunity which follows peri-surgical radiotherapy.
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Service des Maladies Sanguines, Immunitaires et Tumorales, Hôpital Paul-Brousse, Villejuif, France.
D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D000367:Age Factors; D002648:Child; D005602:France; D006801:Humans; D007167:Immunotherapy; D008297:Male; D009369:Neoplasms / Q000401:mortality* / Q000628:therapy; D011379:Prognosis