At St Jude children’s research hospital in Memphis, Tennessee, an unusual clinical trial is under way that, if successful, could have wider ramifications for the vast field of age-related chronic diseases. At first glance, childhood cancer survivors may seem like an unusual population in which to study ageing, but as Greg Armstrong, principal investigator of St Jude’s Childhood Cancer Survivorship Study, explains, we now know they represent a group of individuals who are ageing unusually quickly.
For while modern chemotherapies and radiotherapies have become increasingly efficient at curing childhood cancers, this comes at a great cost, owing to the corrosive impact of such treatment on these children’s bodies, something that becomes more apparent when they reach middle age.
