AI tool that reads your face could help doctors predict cancer survival, study finds

By Marta Iraola Iribarren Published on 29/04/2026 - 7:00 GMT+2 Share Comments Share Facebook Twitter Flipboard Send Reddit Linkedin Messenger Telegram VK Bluesky Threads Whatsapp

Scientists have developed an artificial intelligence tool that analyses changes in a person’s facial appearance over time to predict cancer outcomes.

The face is the mirror of the mind. It shows not just our emotions but the passage of time itself, and, it turns out, the state of health.

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Some people tend to look older than others, even if they are the same age. Illness, stress, and lifestyle all leave their mark.

A team of scientists at Mass General Brigham in the United States has developed FaceAge, an artificial intelligence (AI) tool that can estimate a person’s biological age from a single photograph.

Biological age reflects the body's physiological condition and ageing process rather than actual chronological age.

This has given researchers insights into people’s responses to cancer and its treatment, seeing who has a higher chance of survival and who is responding better to treatment.

Using FaceAge, researchers had previously found that patients with cancer were likely to appear about five years older than their chronological age, and that older estimates correlated with worse survival outcomes after cancer treatment.

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Could FaceAge predict survival?

In a new study, they have found that Face Aging Rate (FAR), which uses photos to measure changes in biological age over time, can serve as a non-invasive biomarker for cancer prognosis.

“Deriving a Face Aging Rate from multiple, routine facial photographs allows for near real-time tracking of an individual’s health,” said co-senior and corresponding author Raymond Mak, a radiation oncologist at Mass General Brigham Cancer Institute and a faculty member in the Artificial Intelligence in Medicine (AIM) programme.

The researchers analysed photographs of 2,276 patients with different types of cancer who received at least two courses of radiation therapy at Brigham and Women’s Hospital between 2012 and 2023.

The images were taken as part of the routine clinical workflow at each separate radiation therapy course.

The researchers found that median FAR results indicated that patients’ facial ageing outpaces their chronological age by 40%.

Higher FAR was linked to lower survival, and the effect was strongest when photos were taken more than two years apart.

“Our study suggests that measuring FaceAge over time may refine personalised treatment planning, improve patient counselling, and help guide the frequency and intensity of follow-up in oncology,” added Mak.

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The study also calculated FaceAge Deviation (FAD), which estimates how biologically old or young the patient looked in a single face photo relative to chronological age.

Patients with both high FAD and FAR values were significantly more likely to have poorer survival outcomes.

However, FAR proved a more reliable predictor of survival outcomes over longer intervals than FAD alone, suggesting that dynamic measurements might be more reliable than single time-point readings.

The authors noted that integrating FAR with baseline FAD could provide a more nuanced and informative measure of an individual’s evolving health status.

“Tracking FaceAge over time from simple photos offers a non-invasive, cost-effective biomarker with potential to inform individuals of their health,” said study co-author Hugo Aerts, director of the AIM program at Mass General Brigham.

“We hope with continued study we can learn how FaceAge may provide prognostic information for patients with other chronic diseases and for healthy individuals.”

The team has also launched a web portal, open to the general public, where anyone can submit a facial photograph to receive their own FaceAge assessment and contribute to ongoing research.

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