US researchers report AI predicts cancer survival from single selfie

A team at Mass General Brigham, a US academic medical center, has published research in Lancet Digital Health demonstrating that artificial intelligence can estimate a patient's biological age and directly predict cancer survival outcomes from a single standard facial photograph.

The researchers trained a foundation model named FAHR-Face on over 40 million facial images across diverse races and ages. From this base, they derived two tools: FAHR-FaceAge, which estimates how old a person looks compared to their chronological age, and FAHR-FaceSurvival, which bypasses age estimation to predict survival probabilities directly. According to reports citing the study, among US cancer patients undergoing radiotherapy, those whose faces appeared five or more years older than their actual age had a 21% higher risk of death during an average four-year follow-up period. Conversely, those appearing younger had a 17% lower risk.

Hugo Aerts, director of the Medical AI program and a senior author, stated that this appears to be the first demonstration of an AI model predicting cancer survival directly from a simple photo. The study also found that lifestyle factors like smoking and heavy drinking correlate with faster facial aging. The team emphasizes that these tools are intended to assist personalized treatment decisions rather than replace physician judgment, and further validation is required before widespread clinical use.