Mice age in cancer research: overlooked implications for clinical translation

Abstract

Mice are important study tools in biomedical research. The in vitro drug/compound anti-cancer findings usually need to be validated in preclinical models especially mice before moving into phase 1 human clinical trials. Cancer is still regarded as an old age disease but in many anti-cancer preclinical research, young mice aged between 6-8 weeks are used which is equivalent to the human age of 10-15 years old. Young mice may not adequately replicate the physiological condition of average human cancer patients; hence preclinical trial outcomes may be too hopeful. As such, although expensive, it is very important to design preclinical experiments by including 60 weeks old geriatric mice which is equivalent to approximately 50 years old cancer patients because older mice more accurately mimic the actual cancer patients.