Eyes may be the window to the soul, but a person’s biological age could be reflected in their facial characteristics. Investigators from Mass General Brigham developed a deep learning algorithm called “FaceAge” that uses a photo of a person’s face to predict biological age and survival outcomes for patients with cancer.

They found that patients with cancer, on average, had a higher FaceAge than those without and appeared about five years older than their chronological age.

Older FaceAge predictions were associated with worse overall survival outcomes across multiple cancer types. They also found that FaceAge outperformed clinicians in predicting short-term life expectancies of patients receiving palliative radiotherapy.