A Historical Misconception in Clinical Trials of Drugs for Cancer—Age Grouping

In clinical trials of cancer drugs, grouping by age is a very common grouping method, as it can allow for a visual comparison of the different pharmaceutical responses in patients at different age stages. Under the guidance of this thinking, many researchers use age grouping when studying clinical cancer drugs. However, even people at the same age may be at different stages in their lives, such as individuals who are going through puberty, menopause/andropause, or intermediate transition, as well as childhood and old age, affected by factors such as hormone levels, immune responses, ethnic groups, and regions. Every individual has different cancer symptoms and responses to drugs; therefore, the experimental effect of life stage grouping will be more obvious and clearer. Not only does this conclusion apply to cancer drugs, but it also applies to clinical trials for other diseases. In addition, this does not mean that age grouping should be completely abandoned. Life stage is a more general interval that can be further divided into life stage groups according to the age of the patients. Based on the principal law of lifespan (PLOSP), age trends in life stages also need to be updated from time to time. To date, life stage grouping has not been discussed systematically and has not been used as a grouping method for cancer patients. In this paper, life stage grouping is discussed as one of the important grouping categories in cancer clinical trials.