Why Do Older People Get Cancer More Often?
- Acute myeloid leukemia (AML) tends to affect older adults, and is uncommon before age 45
- Cancer happens when the immune system fails to dispose of abnormal cells that have formed in the body
- The risk for cancer increases with every decade that a person is alive
Dr. Mikkael Sekeres, the Director of the Leukemia Program at Cleveland Clinic Cancer Center, explains that the incidence of cancer increases with every decade that we live because of the natural behavior of cells.
Read More RELATED: What is Acute Myeloid Leukemia? “Our cells, as we all learned in high school biology, all go through meiosis and mitosis, meaning that cell divides to form an identical twin by pinching off in the middle and duplicating all of the material within that cell to make a perfect twin copy of that cell,” Dr. Sekeres says. “Let’s say that that cell is 99.9% accurate at making a perfect copy. That means that one time out of a thousand, that cell is going to create something that isn’t identical.” Dr. Sekeres explains that typically, when one of these abnormal cells is created our immune system is able to detect it and remove it. But every now and then, the immune system will miss an abnormal cell — and that cell may have a growth advantage compared to the cells around it. When regular cell division is disrupted, cancer can form over time.
“That’s the definition of cancer,” Dr. Sekeres explains. “That’s why most people who get cancer in this country are in their 60s, 70s or 80s.”
Of course, cancer can happen at any age — but the average age of onset for many of the most common cancers in the United States is after age 60.
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