Strengthening the immune system for cancer prevention

Abstract

Palmer et al. (1) make the fascinating suggestion that immune system senescence is a better explanation for cancer incidence than the accumulation of random mutations. Specifically, Palmer et al. show that a model based on immune senescence provides a better fit to age-specific cancer incidence than a model based on random mutations. The authors also address the question of whether immune senescence provides a general explanation by showing that the same model can be used for infectious diseases. Palmer et al. (1) could more explicitly identify how their model explains another key feature of cancer and infectious disease … [↵][1]1To whom correspondence should be addressed. Email: mary.schooling{at}sph.cuny.edu. [1]: #xref-corresp-1-1