The association between increasing age and cancer remains clear. About 1.2 in 10,000 American children between the ages of 10 and 14 develop cancer annually. Move to ages 35 to 39, and the annual cancer incidence increases by a factor of ten, to just over 1 in 1,000.
As you turn 60, just when you would like to start taking life easy and spend a little more time with your children and grandchildren, just when you need a break, that's when cancer may jump into your passenger seat.
Examine the 60 to 64 age group and the annual rate of new cancers has risen again to about 1.1 in a 100. People aged 80 to 84 have the highest incidence of new cancers, about two percent per year. Cancer death rates follow the same inexorable, upward curve from adolescence onward; 60 percent of cancers and 70 percent of cancer deaths occur in people aged 65 and older.
One of the first things to keep in mind when looking at this trend is that not all cancers are the same. Although all malignancies involve uncontrolled cell growth, there are many ways to categorize the various types. Some cancers grow quickly, like those of the esophagus, while prostate cancers may grow for years without causing any major threat to overall health. There is also a clear distinction between the types of cancers normally seen in younger and older people.
Stanley Korsmeyer, M.D.
"Children are more likely to suffer from blood cancers, or cancers in the kidney, bone, or muscles," says Stanley Korsmeyer, M.D., director of the Program in Molecular Oncology at DFCI. "These cancers are genetically less complex, and we have a fair amount of success in treating them.
"Older people tend to get tumors of epithelial tissue — cancers of the skin, lung, colon, and breast," he added. "These are more genetically complex and very difficult to treat. But some of the clues we have to understanding and treating these kinds of cancers relate to the aging of cells."
