Being and immunotherapy effectiveness

Graham Anderson is in the Department of Immunology and Immunotherapy, School of Infection, Inflammation and Immunology, College of Medicine and Health, University of Birmingham, Birmingham B15 2TT, UK.

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The thymus is an organ in the chest that produces T cells, essential components of the immune system 1 , 2 .

However, after peaking in size in adolescence, the thymus progressively shrinks as people age, leaving its relevance to adult health unclear.

In two papers in Nature , Bernatz et al .

3 , 4 present an artificial-intelligence approach for assessing the health of the thymus in adults.

The authors identify thymic health as an indicator of healthy ageing and of whether immunotherapy for cancer treatment is likely to be successful.

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The author declares no competing interests.

Read the paper: Thymic health consequences in adults
Read the paper: Thymic health and immunotherapy outcomes in patients with cancer
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